Daughter of Dark River Farm

by Terri Nixon

  I asked Shackleton to let me out in the town centre rather than at the railway station, and as the car faded into the distance, leaving me alone in the road with only my suitcase and a small purse, I wondered if I was doing the sensible thing after all. Then I remembered the dream, and turned to go into Frank Markham’s shop.

  Martin gave me the distracted smile of a shopkeeper who vaguely recognises a customer, but cannot remember their name, then went back to serving the woman at the counter. His manner altered when I stepped behind the counter and pushed open the door that led to the back.

  ‘Hey, miss! You can’t… That’s not…’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m a friend of Evie and Will’s.’

  He blinked at me, and nodded his recognition, then quickly shook his head again. ‘That may be, but, miss, that there’s private!’

  ‘Is Mr Markham home?’

  ‘Miss!’ Martin was across the floor in two strides, and put his hand across the doorway to prevent me from going through. ‘I mean it. He’ll have my hide if I let anyone up!’

  He looked really worried, not just annoyed, and I suddenly realised why. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I know, and I’m here to help. Will sent me.’

  The lie gave him pause, and he stared back at me for a moment, then stepped away. ‘I hope to goodness he did,’ he muttered, and turned back to his customer.

  I went up the narrow staircase, and found a tiny landing with a door leading off it. I knocked, and after a moment heard a hesitant voice from within. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘My name’s Kitty. I’m a friend of Will’s.’ There was no reply, and I dropped my voice. ‘Please, Mr Markham, I want to help, if I can.’

  There was another pause, then the dragging sound of a bolt being pulled back. The door opened and the man who looked out frowned, but the frown cleared as he looked beyond me and saw I was alone. He stepped back and gestured me in. There was a bright electric light inside, and I blinked after the dimness of the landing and stairwell. When I was able to look at him properly I could see a tall man, with a shock of grey hair surrounding a face that might have been appealing once, and eyes of the same colour as his hair. Not like Archie’s always-shifting, many-shaded grey, these were one, cool and hard colour, and narrowed now in suspicion.

  ‘What can you do to help? If you’re thinking of calling the authorities, I won’t—’

  ‘No. It’s not that. I’m offering to take her away to Devon with me. Just for a little while, until you can find somewhere safe for her.’

  ‘There in’t nowhere safe, stupid girl!’ But it was fear that had sharpened his voice, and I didn’t flinch.

  ‘Maybe not in Breckenhall,’ I allowed, ‘but…you have family, don’t you?’

  ‘My adoptive parents are in Canada now. And the McKrevies won’t have her, if that’s what you’re getting at.’

  I frowned, confused; hadn’t Evie said he was a Wingfield? ‘Who are the McKrevies?’

  ‘My father’s family. They’ll turn her away on sight, poor thing.’ He twisted to look at a door I assumed must be his bedroom.

  ‘Is she in there?’ I asked quietly. ‘And is she all right?’

  He turned back, quick and angry, but then relaxed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Might I see her?’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’ he said in a broken voice. ‘I’ve got to let you take her, haven’t I?’ He gestured at his left arm, and I saw the sleeve was pinned back just below the elbow. ‘I can’t take care of her. I knew that when I took her.’ He looked at me with a pleading expression. ‘But I had to do it anyway. You see that, don’t you?’

  I nodded, unable to speak for a moment; if this unknown child could invade my dreams, and her future become entwined with my past, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how her father must feel. Frank moved past me and pushed open the door with surprising gentleness. I wondered if Amy was sleeping, but she sat in the middle of his narrow bed, a silver spoon clutched in her hand, and deep in concentration as she stared into it. She looked up and saw us, a bright-eyed four-year-old, her almost white-blonde hair a tangled mess, her clothes torn and dirty, but her face scrubbed clean, and solemn. She was terribly thin.

  ‘I did my best to clean her up,’ Frank muttered, ‘but she kept wriggling and I didn’t want to hurt her. She’s eaten though,’ he said quickly. ‘Don’t go thinking I haven’t fed her.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’ll take a while to fatten her up.’ I sat down on the bed. ‘Do you like your spoon, Amy?’ Amy nodded and held it up to her face again, going slightly cross-eyed as she stared into it.

  I looked up at Frank, who seemed unable to take his eyes off his daughter. ‘She’s sweet. Why are you so sure the McKrevies will turn her away?’

  ‘Why would they offer a home to the daughter of a prostitute, and a cripple they’d never wanted to begin with?’

  ‘They never wanted you?’

  ‘My mother married into their family out of spite over…some old, forgotten feud. I don’t know.’ He flicked a dismissive hand. ‘But she died having me, so they had me adopted out. No obligation once my mother was gone.’

  ‘What about her family?’

  ‘The Wingfields?’ He gave a short laugh. ‘To be truthful to you… What’s your name again?’

  ‘Kitty.’

  ‘To be truthful, Kitty, I’d almost rather Amy stayed with her mother than join that band of thieves and liars.’

  I was as taken aback by the coldness in his voice as much as by his words, but didn’t comment. The Wingfield name was enough to tell me he had his reasons. ‘Where are the McKrevies?’

  ‘Blackpool.’

  ‘That’s not far. Have you written to them?’

  ‘No.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve told you they won’t have her. Ballentyne McKrevie’s a hard old sod. He’ll never have anything to do with me.’

  ‘But you have to try!’

  ‘What’s lady for?’ Amy piped up, brandishing her spoon at me.

  ‘Lady is talking about helping us,’ Frank said. ‘Hush now. Daddy and the lady are going to go and talk some more, out there. Call me if you want me, but call quiet, see?’

  She nodded. She had clearly become used to secrecy and subterfuge. Her wide blue eyes followed Frank and me, as we gave her little finger-waves by the door and then stepped back out into the front room.

  ‘You must at least try,’ I said again, sitting down without being invited. Frank fixed me with a long look, realised I wasn’t going anywhere, and sighed again.

  ‘Can I make you a cup of tea?’

  ‘Please.’ I looked around for the clock, but it was too late now to worry about catching the train back to Devon. I’d already decided what I was going to do. ‘I’ll take her.’

  ‘So you said, and I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful, but you can’t just—’

  ‘No, I mean I’ll take her to Blackpool. To the McKrevies. I’m certain if they see her they’ll want to help her.’

  ‘I’ve told you, girl, they won’t!’

  ‘What if they don’t know who she is?’

  ‘If they…’ He stopped spooning tea into the pot, and turned to stare at me. ‘Have you lost your wits? If they won’t take a child they know, why would they take a stranger?’

  I hadn’t thought that far ahead. The idea was only just unravelling itself in my head and I held up my hand, and then gestured for him to continue with what he was doing while I thought about it. In the end I gave up, but the idea still sat firmly in place, and I shrugged. ‘What have you got to lose if they do turn her away?’ I was so certain that one sight of the tow-headed child would be enough to melt the hardest heart that I was prepared to simply march up to the front door and throw her on this unknown family’s compassion. ‘If they see her, and are completely unmoved, which I can’t imagine they will be, I’ll just take her with me back to Devon, as I said in the first place.’

  ‘So either way, she’d be safe,’ Frank said, pouring hot water onto the tea in
the pot. ‘Away from me.’

  ‘Don’t see it like that,’ I urged, feeling his anguish from across the room. ‘I would look after her, and where I live isn’t wealthy, but it’s beautiful. It’s in the country, and she could stay with me until you can make an arrangement to take her somewhere Ruth doesn’t know about, where she can’t send anyone after you both.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked suddenly. He put a cup of tea on the table at my elbow, and fixed his cool grey eyes on mine. ‘Why does it matter so much to you? You don’t know me, or Amy. You say you’re a friend of Miss Creswell’s, but I did her a terrible wrong. So come on, Miss Kitty, I want the truth, now. You trying to trick me into giving her up, so you can take her back to London?’

  ‘No!’

  He stared at my face a moment longer, gauging my honesty before subsiding, and sitting down opposite me.

  ‘Well then?’

  He was a stranger. I couldn’t tell him about my experience with Colonel Drewe, even if I’d felt able to discuss my worries for Amy’s future, which I couldn’t. I didn’t need to, in any case; those worries were echoed in the way he had risked so much to snatch her from her mother. That I could imagine it more vividly than he could was not something to be discussed, and made little difference anyway.

  ‘My family turned me out,’ I said at last. ‘The lady at Dark River Farm, Frances Adams, took me into her home, and made me her daughter. I feel I have a real home now.’ I glanced at the bedroom door again, feeling tears prickling at my eyes. ‘I want the same thing for Amy, Mr Markham. It’s just…not fair.’

  ‘Why did your family disown you?’ His voice was softer now, and I believed he had accepted my reason.

  ‘I can’t tell you. It’s not important, anyway.’ I took a sip of tea and that helped to steady my voice. ‘But you can trust me. It wasn’t anything dishonest. I’m not a liar or a thief, like the Wingfields.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t take payment for what you’re doing?’

  ‘No. Well,’ I hesitated, ‘perhaps just the cost of the train tickets to Blackpool. I have the money to get to Devon myself; I was going back there today anyway, but—’

  ‘I’ll give you the money,’ he said, a little gruffly. ‘Don’t think I’m mean. I just know that if you weren’t genuine about helping you’d more than likely demand some kind of…recompense for your trouble, shall we say?’

  ‘I promise you, Mr Markham, I only want to help. Truly.’

  ‘When would you leave?’

  ‘The sooner the better. But first I think we should try and smarten her up a little bit. Would you allow me to bathe her and wash her hair?’ His lower lip trembled and clamped his top teeth into it to stop it. I looked away. ‘I’ll be very gentle,’ I said quietly. When I looked back, he had himself under control again, and was nodding.

  ‘I’ll fetch the few things I’ve managed to get for her off the market,’ he said. ‘A few shirts and things on the thrift stalls is all.’

  ‘That will be enough,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you could come in and explain to her what’s happening, so she’s not frightened?’

  To my surprise Amy sat still for me, not even moving when I accidentally tugged at a tangle and yanked her head back, and that happened more than once; it was obvious her hair had not been brushed for a long time. The only time she reacted was when I reached out to take the spoon from her so I could work her too-thin little arms into the sleeve of her blouse. The shriek ripped through the room and brought Frank running, his face pale.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said quickly, relinquishing my hold on the spoon. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Markham. She’s not hurt.’

  ‘’Poon!’ Amy said, clutching it to her chest and looking at me with such a look of betrayal I found it hard not to laugh. Frank’s face too, flickered into a smile, and he crouched beside his daughter.

  ‘Sweetheart, the lady isn’t going to take it away; she just wants to look at it. Will you let her see how pretty it is?’

  Amy’s face rose to mine, her eyes brimming with tears, but she held the spoon out to me. I took it, swallowing a rush of emotion that made my voice husky. ‘Thank you.’ I wasn’t sure if I was grateful to Amy or Frank, or just for the chance to help these two mismatched and lost people. Neither did I know how I’d feel when it was time to part them.

  We attracted no untoward attention at the railway station. Frank was well known in the town, and drew some interest at being seen with a young woman and a little girl, but he fixed a broad smile on his face and introduced us as family from the West Country. I was just preparing myself for the saddest of goodbyes, when I saw he was holding a ticket for himself. He saw me glance at it, and shrugged.

  ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you,’ he began, a little embarrassed, but I smiled.

  ‘I’d expect nothing less.’ I looked down at Amy, barely recognisable as the shaggy-haired child of this morning. She held my hand without hesitation; I wanted to believe it was because she trusted me already, but the realistic part of me knew she’d spent her entire young life being handed from person to person, and I was simply another in a long line of strangers into whose care she had been put. I saw Frank gently brush at the newly washed, dead-straight hair that hung beneath her bonnet, and looked away. The parting, when it eventually came, would hurt a great deal, but it wouldn’t be Amy who felt the pain.

  ‘It’s number eighty-four.’

  We stood at the top of an impossibly long street in Great Marton, on the outskirts of Blackpool. It looked as if the road would lead all the way through the heart of the city, right out to the coast, if we followed it; even though it was perfectly straight I couldn’t see the end.

  ‘The road’s miles long,’ I said, looking down at Amy doubtfully. Will she be able to walk all that way?’

  ‘It’s only halfway down,’ he said, and I wondered how many times he’d been back here, eyeing the wealth that would have been his were it not for ancient family feuds. ‘On the left of the street. She’ll be fine.’ He crouched beside her, holding her arm with his one good hand. ‘You be good, little one, and maybe you’ll have a fine bedroom of your own tonight. Lots of toys. Would you like that?’

  She nodded, but gripped her spoon tightly, as if reassuring herself that, no matter how many new toys she might somehow be given, she would always have that one.

  ‘Why is she so attached to it?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Shiny, I suppose. She had it when I found her, and when I tried to take it off her, to put it in my own pocket so she wouldn’t lose it, she yelled to split the roof, just like she did with you.’ He smiled and straightened, but as he turned away I could see his jaw quilt with suppressed emotion. ‘I’ll be waiting down there, in the park.’ He pointed. ‘I’ll look after your case so’s you can carry Amy’s. Take as much time as you need, only…’ he cleared his throat ‘…come and tell me. Whatever happens.’

  ‘I will.’

  He bent to pick up my suitcase, and I waited to see if he would actually say goodbye to his daughter, but when it became clear he wouldn’t I took a firmer hold on Amy’s hand, and drew her away down the street.

  I still didn’t know what I was going to say. I had been wracking my brains on the train journey, to no avail, and it was only as we passed a small Anglican church, set back from the road, that an idea took hold. I bent and checked Amy’s appearance, then led her to the door of the church. It was empty, but the back door stood open and, going through it into the small churchyard at the rear of the church, away from the road, I saw the vicar pulling up weeds from around an old, heavily leaning headstone.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I called. The vicar turned and straightened, eyeing the two of us with curiosity. Amy’s hair colour and mine were both so vivid, yet very different. It was unlikely we were mother and daughter so it was best not to pretend we were.

  ‘How can I help?’ He threw the pile of weeds he’d been clutching onto a heap by the church wall, and wiped his hands on his trousers as he came over, prior to offeri
ng a handshake.

  ‘I was wondering if you might know of a generous family,’ I began, and saw his face cloud. ‘I’m not looking for money, but for a safe home for my…my sister’s little girl.’

  ‘Where’s her real home?’ He bent and looked closely at Amy, presumably searching for any sign of fear or ill-treatment. I was glad for his concern—it boded well—but hoped Amy wouldn’t choose this moment to react poorly to strangers, or to break her customary silence and blurt out the truth. And I also hoped, fervently, that the kindly, middle-aged man wouldn’t try to have a closer look at the silver spoon.

  ‘Her mother, my sister, is unwell, and her father…’ I let myself tail off, hoping he would make the logical assumption without making me lie. I found it hard enough to spin a tale to a man of the cloth, but I didn’t want to invoke a dark fate by speaking of death, not here in this churchyard.

  ‘And have you no other family?’

  ‘None, sir. I am about to leave for Flanders. Red Cross, you know. And my sister is terrified her child will be taken to an orphanage. She will be well again soon, we hope, and able to care for her daughter.’ Again, I allowed doubt to enter my voice, and the vicar’s expression clouded as he reached the conclusion I’d been hoping for.

  He pursed his lips. ‘A generous family, you say?’

  ‘Generous-hearted, I should have said.’

  ‘What brings you to this street?’

  I floundered then, but decided to push my luck a little farther. ‘My sister told me of a well-off family who she once worked for, and told me Great Marton was where they lived, but I’m afraid I’m not certain where to begin looking. Since we have no reason to believe they would take Amy anyway, I thought it best, when I saw your church, to see if you knew of any home where Amy might be safe and comfortable for a little while.’

  His local curiosity was piqued. ‘What family?’

  I pretended to stumble over the name; I didn’t want to put the words into his mouth. ‘I’m afraid it’s been a difficult time… I think perhaps it was MacKenzie?’