Daughter of Dark River Farm

by Terri Nixon

  Wherever that might be.

  ‘Did you proud, I hope?’ Seth asked, taking Pirate from Archie. I held the small box Frances had put together for him, and when he’d looped Pirate’s reins over the fence post he took it from me with a smile of thanks. He was like a different man, nowadays. He did look a bit shifty though, as he took the box, as if he desperately wanted to investigate its contents, but didn’t like to while I was there.

  ‘I think it’s just some extra butter,’ I said helpfully, ‘and maybe another jar of honey. I hope that’s all right?’

  ‘Right you are,’ Seth said, looking relieved. He must really like that honey, and I made a mental note to tell Frances and Lizzy, so they could make sure they put some in next time too.

  ‘Pirate’s been invaluable, thank you,’ I said. ‘We got the hay in right before last night’s little storm. Might we be able to borrow him once more? Not to work, but just to ride, before Archie goes back?’

  ‘Don’t see why not. Let him rest a day, then you can take him tomorrow evening. That suit?’

  ‘It does, thank you.’

  Stroking Pippin’s nose to avoid making eye contact, he cleared his throat. ‘Uh, about the other young miss, do you know if she…will she be…’

  ‘Mr Pearce,’ I said gently, hating to be the one, and cursing Bel under my breath. ‘I do understand you’ve formed a bit of an attachment to Belinda. But she has her sights set elsewhere. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be sorry, maid.’ Seth was able to look at me now, clearly glad it was out in the open at last. ‘I should have known better. She’s a rare beauty.’

  ‘The first time you saw her, her nose was all swollen and covered in blood, and her hair was in her face,’ I said, exchanging an amused glance with Archie.

  ‘And that’s the only time I’ve seen her,’ Seth pointed out. ‘Didn’t stop me seeing past it. And she’s a dab hand with a bit of rope.’

  ‘She is.’ I remembered the expert halter-tying. ‘I’m sorry to be the one to tell you.’

  He waved a hand, dismissing it. Then he saw me looking nervously at Pirate, and smiled. ‘Don’t worry, miss. I might not have had the purest of reasons for suggestin’ our arrangement, but that don’t mean I don’t think it’s a good one. I’m not going to stop you borrowing the lad here just because your friend has a bit of sense.’

  ‘Thank you!’ I breathed a sigh of relief, and decided I didn’t need to push Belinda down the stairs after all.

  ‘Besides, that honey’s so good, I’d swap him next week for a lifetime’s supply!’ It was the first time I’d heard him joke, and guessed it was the relief of talking about Bel that had freed a well hidden, but naturally pleasant nature. He coughed again, and held up a hand. ‘Uh, one thing though?’

  ‘Yes?’ I’d just climbed up into the trap, and he squinted up at me, shielding his eyes.

  ‘You don’t need to worry about how much you can pay me,’ he said. The evening sun shone full in his face, and I could see the flush on his already ruddy skin. ‘I’d be quite all right about it if you left out them biscuits, next time.’

  Archie and I were still laughing a few minutes later, as we drew near the prison. I found more to like about Seth every time I saw him, and it was difficult to equate him with the furious, shouting man who’d terrified Bel and me just a couple of months ago—I wished Bel could see it too.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Archie said, slowing Pippin slightly, and my eyes followed where he was pointing. Up ahead in the road, a single figure stood, a girl. Staring down at the men still toiling in the fields, she looked out of place here, incongruous even.

  ‘She’s very well dressed,’ I observed. ‘Not a farm girl.’

  ‘No, you’re all ruffians and tramps,’ Archie said, and I thumped his thigh. He smiled. ‘See? No decorum whatsoever.’

  ‘I wonder who she is,’ I said, ignoring him, then started as we drew a little closer. ‘I know her!’ The hat she wore did not hide her jet-black hair, nor did her smart coat disguise the youth of the figure beneath it. ‘What on earth is she doing here alone?’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Helen McKrevie. She’s probably here to see her father. Stop a minute. I’m going to talk to her.’ I jumped down, and turned back, putting a hand on his knee. ‘Better if you wait here. She’s only about sixteen. She might not have permission to be here and I don’t want to frighten her off.’

  ‘Aye, as you like.’ Archie sat back to wait, while I hurried up the road towards Helen. She had heard us approach, but showed no sign of nervousness so maybe her grandfather thought it was all right to send her halfway across the country after all. Or maybe Louise was somewhere close by. I glanced around as I approached, but couldn’t see anyone else.

  ‘Helen?’ I called, and she recognised me with a jolt.

  ‘Miss Maitland! I thought you had gone to Belgium.’

  Following so quickly on my decision to do that very thing, I felt easier in my mind as I said, ‘I’m going in a few days.’ At least it felt like the truth this time.

  Helen followed my quick glance back at the cart, and her expression softened. ‘That’s him, then? The one you were missing?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and I remembered how lost and broken my love had been then, when she’d said those words. ‘Archie. He arrived yesterday, but leaves by Friday.’

  She turned back towards the rocky land below us, where tiny figures still swung their picks. ‘And I’ve seen my father, so all’s as we said it should be.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘We’ve taken a room in the village. It’s very nice.’

  ‘Your sister is with you? That’s good. It will help you both to see your father.’

  ‘Aye, I hope so, although she’s not come with me yet. How’s the wee girl?’

  ‘She’s settling in beautifully.’ On impulse I blurted, ‘Why don’t you visit the farm tomorrow? You’ll be able to see what a good place it is, and see that Amy’s being well cared for.’

  Her face lit up. ‘What a lovely idea! It would be wonderful to come to the farm and meet everyone.’

  As soon as she spoke I realised my mistake. Neither girl was a fool, and it wouldn’t take more than an introduction to show that the Evie and Will I’d mentioned were very much alive and well, and not Amy’s parents.

  For an instant I tried to think of a way to twist what I’d said against what I hadn’t said, so that it might appear a misunderstanding on her part…but I heard the fresh lies in my mind and knew it had to stop.

  ‘Helen, listen,’ I said, and caught her shoulders to make her look at me. ‘I wasn’t telling you the truth. About Evie and Will. They’re not Amy’s mother and father at all.’

  Helen frowned. ‘Then who are they, and why did you say they were?’

  ‘They’re good friends of mine.’

  ‘And the man was not killed?’

  ‘No. He was badly hurt, but he wasn’t killed.’

  She looked as though she didn’t know whether to be relieved or angry, but eventually she just nodded, and spoke slowly, taking it all in. ‘Well, that’s good news, right enough, but why didn’t you tell the truth about her parents?’

  ‘I knew your grandfather would not listen to anything I had to say if I did.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I can’t tell you now,’ I said. ‘It’s a long story. And it doesn’t matter, now Amy’s found a home. Will you still come tomorrow? We can talk then if you’d like.’

  Helen regarded me for a long moment, then nodded. The distrust in her expression made the guilt twist tighter, and I considered just telling her the truth about her relationship to Amy now, but Frank’s face floated in the front of my mind and I couldn’t do it. I could have kicked myself for mentioning the farm at all, but she’d been so concerned Amy was being well cared for, and anyway the damage was done.

  ‘I’ll come and collect you in the cart at ten. Would you like a lift back to the village now?’

 
; ‘It’s not far; I can walk.’

  ‘No, but we’re going that way anyway. Come on, let us help a little bit. Unless you wanted to stay here a while longer?’ I added, gesturing at the prison workers below us.

  ‘I’ve seen enough, and Father’s told me what I needed to know, that he’s not being mistreated like some of them. I’ll take the ride back, and thank you kindly for the offer.’

  I helped her climb into the back of the little cart, and Archie turned and smiled at her. She smiled back, but seemed slightly in awe of him until he spoke, and she remembered he was a fellow Scot.

  ‘Glad to meet you, lass,’ he said, as informally as politeness allowed. ‘I hope your father’s well.’

  ‘Aye, he is, thank you, sir,’ she said. ‘Where are you from, if you don’t mind me asking? Not Glasgow.’

  ‘No, a fair bit north of there.’ He clicked to Pippin to walk on. ‘Wee place up near Fort William, if you know it?’

  ‘Oh, aye. So pretty up there,’ she said with enthusiasm, and I smiled my thanks at Archie, who twined the fingers of one hand around mine briefly before returning them to the reins.

  When we dropped Helen off at the inn where they’d taken a room, she looked up at me, faintly troubled again now she stood alone in the road. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. You can tell us everything then. The truth this time?’

  ‘The truth,’ I promised.

  Archie didn’t say anything as we moved on, evidently expecting an explanation, but after a moment he gave up waiting. ‘What was all that about?’

  I looked away, my mind once again flashing through all the possible explanations but the right one, but lying to him, of all people, was out of the question. So I told him everything, every detail of the Blackpool trip, my using Will and Evie, and then talking to Helen in the park afterwards. I even told him what she’d said about him living in my head and making me want to be fighting at his side. When I fell away into silence, waiting tensely to defend my actions somehow, he pulled Pippin to a stop and, to my relieved surprise, took me in his arms.

  ‘I can see you feel bloody terrible about it,’ he said, ‘and that’s partly why I love you so much.’

  ‘Partly?’

  His soft laugh rumbled in his chest. ‘Aye. A bigger part’s because you did it to begin with.’

  I pulled back, blinking in surprise. ‘What I did was—’

  ‘For Amy. And you never came out and said Will was no more, did you?’

  ‘Well, no, but—’

  ‘Stop it.’ He drew my head back into the hollow of his shoulder. I could feel the warmth of him through his shirt, and wanted to stay there for ever. ‘What you did was completely selfless,’ he said. ‘You could have come straight home here, where everything was safe and comfortable, and known to you. But instead you went into a strange man’s home, a man you knew nothing about.’ I felt his hands tighten on my back and across my shoulders. ‘Even if that was all you did, it would still be one of the most courageous acts I’d ever known, after Colonel Drewe. But it wasn’t all, was it? You gave his daughter your own lunch, walked for miles, made up stories out of nowhere, and then confronted one of the richest men in the city in his own home. All to find a roof and a home for a little girl who’s nothing to do with you.’

  His sigh went through both of us, and I felt him drop a gentle kiss onto the back of my neck. ‘Kitty Maitland, you’re the bravest wee thing I’ve ever known. And the most compassionate. I feel humbled to be living in your head and your heart. I truly do.’

  Later that night, sleeping in his arms in Frances’s bed, my dreams were filled with peace and contentment for the first time since he’d left for Belgium in 1914. I’d crept out of bed and gone to him as soon as everyone had turned in for the night, and we’d lain in silence, not making love, by mutual understanding, but learning each other the way we couldn’t have done last night out in the rain. Our nightclothes had been cast aside in the need to experience the joy of contact, and his hands cupped and pressed, travelled and caressed. Our kisses were not fuelled by urgency, they were born of wonder and growing delight, and my fingers traced the contours of his chest and stomach, making him tremble as they drifted over him.

  My head fit perfectly in the hollow of his shoulder, as it had done in the cart earlier that evening, but this time I only had to turn my head slightly to press my lips to his warm, smooth skin. His fingers drifted over my back, and mine traced his ribs as my arm lay across his waist. In this way we fell asleep, and while last night our bodies had come together in mingled fear and need, tonight our hearts and minds became gently but irrevocably entwined and my last thought, before sinking into the bliss of sleep, was that at last we were complete.

  If only I had stayed there, everything might have been all right.

  Chapter Eighteen

  In the very early hours, I woke and reluctantly realised I would have to return to my own bed. It was horribly difficult to ease myself away from Archie, not just because I didn’t want to waken him, but because the moment my hand lost contact with his body I wanted to put it back. He lay on his back, one arm hanging off the side of the bed, the other beneath me where he’d wrapped me in his embrace before falling asleep. As my weight shifted off that arm, I saw his fingers twitch, and held my breath, but he sighed and settled again. I carried on, easing myself away from him, feeling the loss of his warmth with every inch. Standing in the moonlit room, looking down at his powerful form, helpless in sleep, I had to clench my fists to avoid reaching out to touch him one last time, and I wrapped my arms across my chest and turned away to pluck my nightgown off the chair. I slipped it over my head, and put one hand over the door latch to muffle the click, but it still echoed around the room and I froze. Archie still did not awake.

  Back in my own room, this time trying not to wake Amy or Belinda, I crept onto the bottom of my own bed, and crawled up it to the pillow. It felt cold and empty, but I would have to get used to that. I eased back the covers, and clambered awkwardly in, congratulating myself on my silent accomplishment, but a hiss from Belinda’s bed made me groan.

  ‘Kitty! Have you been with Archie?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered back, ‘but not the way you mean.’

  ‘Oh. Have you ever though?’

  ‘Bel! Go to sleep.’

  ‘I’ll assume that means yes,’ she said with a certain satisfaction. I shivered and snuggled deeper, without answering. The bed might be cold, but I was bone-tired, and it was good to close my eyes again and let my fingers remember the strong swell of Archie’s chest, and the way his stomach muscles tightened when he laughed, in his effort to be silent. My fingertips alive with memory, I slipped closer to sleep again.

  ‘Kitty?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Tell me about the diamond.’

  ‘Not now. Sleepy.’

  ‘Oh, please! Just a little bit.’ A pause. I kept very still. ‘Kitty!’ I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, but I knew she wouldn’t give up.

  ‘What’m hwa no?’

  ‘What?’

  I sighed, licked my lips, and tried again. ‘What do you want to know?’ I heard her sit up, but was determined not to do the same. ‘I don’t know much myself,’ I cautioned.

  ‘Well, is it worth an awful lot?’

  ‘Quite a lot. Yes. A lot.’

  ‘How did Archie get it?’

  ‘His uncle found it.’

  ‘I do like Jack. He and Lizzy are so perfect for one another, despite their age difference.’ I was bemused by the way her mind flitted. It was making me even more tired, but glad she’d changed the subject.

  ‘Good,’ I mumbled. But she changed it back again.

  ‘Why do you think Evie never mentions the diamond?’

  ‘She never wanted… It’s got to go back to Borneo,’ I said on a yawn, not wanting to get into explanations about Evie’s hatred of the Kalteng Star. ‘Bel, please. I’m tired, and if you wake Amy—’

  ‘Why Borneo?’

  ‘Because… I�
�ll tell you tomorrow.’

  ‘All right.’ I heard the rustle of sheets as she settled back down, and breathed a sigh of relief, but she whispered again. ‘Kitty?’

  ‘Urghm.’

  ‘I’m so glad you and Archie are happy.’

  I grunted, ‘G’night, Bel,’ but my face, pressed against my pillow, split into a smile.

  I’d hoped to spend Archie’s last full day with him. I’d pictured the dark, deep green wood behind us, throwing its shadows across the otherwise sun-dappled river, the quiet gurgling of the water providing the score for the familiar mingling of our voices…but when he’d seen Frances readying herself to go to work in the far fields, he’d exchanged a glance with me, and given me a faint, apologetic smile. I returned it, with encouragement and a little nod, and he told Frances to wait while he fetched some tools and came with her. Her gratitude made the disappointment a bit easier to bear, but it was difficult to hide it, especially when Amy had gone with them. It had been funny and tender to see, when Archie sat on the step to put on his boots, how she had sat next to him and pulled at her already shod feet in imitation. He’d looked down at her with a smile.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Amy-Anna-Banana.’

  ‘Mornin’, Mister Arsh. Boots?’

  ‘That’s right. I’m away to help Mrs Adams today. She’s got lots of things to do before the weather turns nasty.’

  ‘I comin’ too?’

  He looked back into the kitchen and up at me, one eyebrow raised. ‘What say you, young Kittlington?’