Little Girl Lost

by Val Wood

  A smile played around her lips. She would slip out and take a stroll about the town. Maybe she’d walk down to the pier and look at the Humber and then come back through Market Place and the king’s gardens and call at Anneliese’s house and ask if she was at home, even if it was Christmas Day.

  At lunch Margriet was allowed a small glass of wine mixed with water with which to toast happier times, but she was not very enthusiastic either about the wine, which she found too bitter, or about the toast to the future, which she couldn’t believe would ever be happy again. To please her mother, however, she raised her glass and murmured, ‘Happier times.’

  After they had eaten and Mrs Simmonds and Lily had cleared away, Margriet’s mother, as predicted, said she was going up to rest in her room. She asked Margriet how she would pass the time.

  ‘Oh, I’ll do the same, Mama, and perhaps read one of the books you gave me.’ Margriet had embroidered her mother a pretty bookmark and she saw that it was already in use inside a magazine that Rosamund was taking upstairs with her.

  ‘Very well. I’ll see you at teatime, then,’ her mother said, and Margriet thought wistfully of the times when her father would come upstairs and share afternoon tea and crumpets by her fireside, and then go down and have another tea with her mother. Now she was allowed to have tea downstairs to keep her mother company. She gave another sigh. She seemed to sigh a lot, she thought. It was as if she were trying to move a heavy weight that was sitting on her chest.

  She went upstairs and took her warm coat from the wardrobe and placed it on her bed, and instead of her bonnet she brought out a shawl. She thought she would wrap it round her head, so that no one would recognize her. Not that there would be many people about on Christmas Day now that the church services were over. The market and the shops would probably be closed and the town quite still.

  She lay down on her bed and waited. Waited for her mother to settle into her rest; waited for Cook and Mrs Simmonds to finish their meal, and waited for Lily to finish washing the dishes. When she thought it was safe, she climbed sleepily off the bed and put on her coat, slipped on her outdoor boots and gloves and lastly draped the shawl over her head. She quietly crept downstairs to the front door, closed it softly behind her and ran down the front steps towards Whitefriargate.

  It was colder than she had thought it would be and she wrapped the shawl firmly round her head, tucking the ends inside her coat. She reached the end of Whitefriargate and sped along Trinity House Lane towards the King Billy statue, where several children were playing on the plinth beneath the feet of the golden horse. She waved to them as she went past and they glanced towards her; she crossed over into Blackfriargate and on to Queen Street towards the Humber and the pier.

  She leaned over the railings and saw the rough waves crashing against the wooden uprights, filling the slope where at low tide market traders and others would bring their horses to wash the mud off them.

  ‘’Ere, who are you? What ’you doin’? You’re not from round ’ere. What ’you doin’ by ’oss wash?’

  Margriet turned and gazed at the dirty-faced, ragged boy standing behind her with his arms crossed against his thin chest. ‘Sorry. What did you say?’

  ‘Ooh, la-di-da! Who are you?’

  ‘I’m …’ Perhaps she shouldn’t tell him her name.

  ‘Don’t ya know who you are?’ the boy asked. ‘Are you lost or summat?’

  Margriet could barely understand what he was saying. She stared at him, thinking he might have been one of the children she had seen near the statue. ‘I’m not lost,’ she told him. ‘I’ve come out for a walk.’

  ‘Where d’ya live?’

  ‘Erm, near Whitefriargate.’

  ‘In an ’ouse?’

  She laughed. ‘Of course in a house. Where else?’

  The boy shrugged. ‘I dunno. Anywhere. Have ya had your dinner?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Have you had yours?’

  ‘Yeh. Sandy brought it and Immi came as well. We had pork ’n’ mash an’ loads o’ gravy an’ then a plum puddin’.’

  ‘Oh,’ Margriet said. ‘That sounds nice. Is Sandy your mother?’

  It was his turn to laugh, wrinkling up his dirty face. ‘Nah! She’s Immi’s ma. They brought dinner for all of ’bairns, cos of it being Christmas. Did you know it was Christmas Day?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’ Margriet didn’t know what to make of this boy. She thought her mother would have called him an urchin and wouldn’t have allowed her to speak to him, but he had a cheeky grin and although he didn’t look very clean she liked him. ‘But we couldn’t go to church this morning because my mother is in mourning and isn’t allowed out.’

  ‘Why’s that then? Who’s she in mourning for?’

  Margriet’s lips trembled and her eyes filled with sudden tears. ‘For my father,’ she whispered and wiped her eyes on a corner of the shawl.

  ‘Aw! Don’t cry,’ he protested. ‘Do ya want to come ower and talk to us? Most of us don’t have a fayther an’ some of us don’t have a ma either. But we all manage one way or another, ’specially when Sandy or some of ’other women bring us summat to eat.’

  She began to walk alongside him, sniffling into the shawl. She hadn’t understood what he meant at first, but now she realized that if these children hadn’t any parents, then perhaps they might be the deserving poor she had learned about at school. The ones for whom she had collected her unwanted clothes and given them to Florrie to distribute. She couldn’t ask him if they’d got them, she thought, in case he might be offended by the act of charity.

  By the time they reached the King Billy statue, some of the children had gone and there were only four of them left, sitting below the plinth.

  ‘Who’s that wi’ you, Billy?’ one of the boys asked. ‘Is she new round ’ere?’

  ‘Says she lives in Whitefriargate.’ He grinned at Margriet. ‘Didn’t tell ya I had ’same name as King Billy, did I?’ He turned to the others. ‘She’s just lost her da, so I says for her to come ower to us.’

  ‘She can’t live with us,’ one of the girls said. ‘There’s not enough room.’

  ‘I don’t want to live with you – thank you,’ she added, not wanting to appear ungrateful. ‘I live with my mother. I only came over to talk to you.’

  ‘What ’you want to talk about?’ the other girl asked.

  ‘I – I only wanted to say hello, that’s all,’ Margriet answered hesitantly, thinking that these children, a couple of whom were slightly older than her, seemed very grown up and sure of themselves. ‘I’m on my way to call on a friend.’

  ‘Where does she live?’ Billy was asking questions again.

  ‘She lives on Land of Green Ginger.’ Margriet smiled. ‘Do you know the story about the name?’ She thought that if they’d like her to she would tell it to them just as her father had told her. But they all nodded and said that they knew it and that some of them had lived down there. ‘So do you know Anneliese Lindegroen?’ she asked eagerly, and was disappointed when one after another they shook their heads and said they’d never heard of her. ‘I’ll have to be going now,’ she said. ‘It’s getting late but it’s been very nice to meet you all,’ and she wondered why they all grinned at each other and the boys larked about and gave each other little bows and one of the girls got up and dipped a curtsey.

  But Billy didn’t. He just gazed at her curiously and then said, ‘Sorry about your da. You can come back sometime if you like and talk about him. Was he a fisherman and lost at sea, like mine?’

  ‘He wasn’t a fisherman,’ she said, ‘but he was lost at sea. I didn’t really know what it meant at first, and then we were told that the ship’s boiler had blown up and everyone was killed. Instantly.’

  Immediately they were sympathetic, and one of the girls came and put her arm round her. ‘Poor little lass,’ she said sorrowfully. ‘That’s really hard.’ She patted her shoulder. ‘You come an’ talk to us any time you want. We’re generally round here about teatime. We wait
to see if there’s owt left ower from ’market stalls.’ She seemed to cotton on to Margriet’s bafflement, and added, ‘You know – food ’n’ that.’

  ‘Of course,’ Margriet said. ‘Thank you. I’d like that. Goodbye, then. Goodbye, Billy.’

  Billy silently nodded and lifted his hand and she set off down Market Place towards Silver Street, still determined to call on Anneliese in Land of Green Ginger.

  She stood in her usual position and looked up at the window. Daylight was diminishing and clouds rolling in, whilst above her seabirds were heading inland. She shivered. There was no light in Anneliese’s window and she felt a shred of disappointment. Perhaps it was true what her father had said all that time ago, that the house was empty. What was it that his colleague had answered? That the house was haunted! She had asked Papa what it meant – she took a small breath and felt that she could almost see his face as he’d waggled his ears to tease her for listening – but what answer had he given her?

  She gazed up at the window and thought for a second that the curtain had moved slightly; did it or not? Yes, there it was again. She saw a small hand lift the muslin. Papa had said that if a place was haunted it meant that there was a ghost living there, or something like that anyway. She laughed and waved but knew it was too late to call; Florrie would be home soon and would demand to know where she had been. But there was Anneliese, not a ghost at all, waving back to her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  January 1848

  Margriet had told her mother at Christmas that she didn’t want to mark her forthcoming birthday. ‘It’s almost a year since Papa – since Papa …’ She swallowed. She didn’t want to say the words. If she said the words it would make it true that her father wouldn’t be coming back, and she still clung to the hope that he had been washed ashore on some tiny island and was living off fish from the sea and rabbits he could snare and cook over a fire.

  She had said as much to Miss Barker one day when the teacher had taken her to her own room after she had been overcome by a fit of weeping for no reason that she could explain, except that it was just a few days before her twelfth birthday and her father wouldn’t be here to share it.

  ‘It’s very hard to lose someone you love, Margriet,’ Miss Barker had said gently, holding her pupil’s hand. ‘But if you try to accept it, then you will find that the pain will lessen eventually.’

  It was then that Margriet had told her about her father being washed up on an island. ‘He might be waiting for a boat to rescue him,’ she sniffled.

  Miss Barker sat thinking for a moment, and then got up and went to her bookshelf. She brought down an atlas and put it on the table.

  ‘Come here, Margriet, and let us look at the area of the German Ocean – which is sometimes called the North Sea – between Hull and Amsterdam and see if we can find an island. We know, don’t we, that many fishing boats go out to sea from this town and head off towards the Arctic regions. So if seamen saw an island they would mark it on a chart. Rather as Sunk Island in the Humber is marked.’

  Margriet nodded eagerly and wiped her tears. Then her eyes filled up again as she remembered that the boy Billy had said that his father had been lost at sea, so he must have meant drowned. She gave a small shudder, and Miss Barker, seeing it, took a shawl from the back of a chair and draped it round her shoulders before opening the atlas at the appropriate page.

  ‘So, now, Margriet.’ She sat the child down and bent over her. ‘Here is a map of the British Isles. Tell me what you see.’

  Margriet scanned the map. ‘We’re very small, aren’t we, Miss Barker?’ Her finger traced up the coastline. ‘But here’s an island, and another! Orkney,’ she said, peering at the tiny print, ‘and Shetland.’

  ‘But look where we are, Margriet,’ said Miss Barker, taking hold of Margriet’s hand and bringing her finger back down to the small spit of land pointing into the sea. ‘Here is Hull, and across this stretch of water is Amsterdam.’

  Margriet stared at the width of water separating England and Netherlands. It seemed as if a mere stride would cross it, but she had sailed over the sea to visit her grandmother and she had seen it at Scarborough, and knew that in reality it was very wide; too wide to stride across and deep enough to hide a ship beneath its waves.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I understand now. There are no islands where he might have been washed ashore.’

  ‘No,’ Miss Barker said softly. ‘But you must try to think that whatever happened was an accident and couldn’t have been foreseen. Your father, being the man he was, brought you up to be a good, kind and clever girl, and he would have wanted you to continue doing all the things he taught you.’

  ‘And do you think he’s watching over me, as the parson said?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the teacher said honestly. ‘Perhaps when you’re grown up you will discover for yourself whether or not you believe that to be true.’

  Margriet took a deep breath. ‘Thank you, Miss Barker,’ she said. ‘I feel better now that I understand more, although I’m still sad. I think I always will be.’

  Miss Barker shook her head. ‘Your papa wouldn’t want that,’ she said. ‘I think that above all else he would want you to be happy, and to think of him with joy.’

  ‘Oh, yes, and I do. There won’t ever be anyone else like him.’

  Miss Barker, remembering the handsome, charming man who was so keen to have his only daughter educated, said, ‘You are quite right, Margriet. There won’t ever be anyone quite like him.’

  Strangely enough, Margriet did feel better and more grown up now that she had reached twelve, and she was determined to learn as much as she could so that her father would have been proud of her. Although she had told her mother she didn’t want a birthday present or a special tea for her birthday, her mother, who wasn’t in the habit of giving surprises, had one for Margriet.

  ‘I know you said you didn’t want to mark your birthday, but I decided that you deserved something,’ she said and gave a smile, hunching up her shoulders. ‘I’ve booked a house at Scarborough,’ she went on. ‘For a month, in August. I know how much you enjoy being there and by then I won’t have to wear black all the time, although I might still wear a black hat and veil. I think I quite suit black, and it will go very well with grey.’

  Margriet had mixed feelings about staying in Scarborough without her father. She asked Julia whether the Sandersons would be going this year and Julia said she hoped they would be, now that baby Richard was old enough to play on the sands without putting sand in his mouth and eating it.

  By mid March, Margriet and Julia walked home together every day, parting at the top of Parliament Street, where Julia continued on to Albion Street. Occasionally Margriet would surreptitiously turn back and head for Land of Green Ginger. She rarely saw Anneliese, though, which she put down to the fact that the days were much lighter now and the family was probably out in their garden tending the ginger plants. Sometimes she caught a glimpse of Billy or one of the girls whose name she didn’t know, but they didn’t seem to notice her and always looked to be in a hurry as they scurried off into one of the many narrow passageways.

  And so the winter and spring passed. Rosamund had received a letter from Gerda saying that she would like Margriet to visit her, but had replied that it was too soon and not convenient at present, and in any case they were going away in the summer. She didn’t tell Margriet of the request and neither did she pass on the letter that came for Margriet shortly afterwards.

  She began to hold one or two more lunches at home whilst Margriet was at school and gradually eased herself back into society, even on two occasions accepting invitations to Lydia’s card parties, which Lydia assured her would be very discreet. The only other guests were people Rosamund knew, and one of these was Lydia’s brother, William Ramsey, who was his usual courteous and solicitous self, asking about her health and telling her how delighted he was to see her looking so well.

  When school broke up for the summer hol
idays, Margriet felt quite excited at the thought of going to Scarborough, although she wondered how they would manage their luggage without her father. Florrie was going with them again, and she told Margriet that the coach driver had said he would bring along his lad to help them. They were taking a smaller house this time, as the one they had rented previously wasn’t available, and although her mother was cross about it Margriet was pleased. She didn’t want to be in a house where she and her father had enjoyed previous holidays so much.

  ‘Hmm,’ Florrie said down in the kitchen. ‘Can’t think why ’mistress would have wanted ’bigger house just for ’two of them. It isn’t as if she’ll be entertaining.’ Then she pursed her lips and muttered, ‘Or mebbe she will be.’

  ‘Why, who would she entertain?’ Mrs Simmonds asked. ‘Unless it’s them folks as she’s had here for luncheon.’

  ‘In that case I should be going ’stead of Florrie,’ Cook said. ‘She can’t cook like I can.’

  ‘And neither can you mek ’beds and keep ’place tidy like I can,’ Florrie pointed out. ‘Nor I don’t think you’d fancy tekkin’ Miss Margriet swimming in ’sea like I do.’

  ‘No,’ Cook huffed. ‘That I would not, not at any price.’

  But their curiosity deepened when a few days before they were due to depart Rosamund asked Cook if she would cook a ham for them to take so that they could use it for cold meat instead of having to buy it. She also asked her to make biscuits and a cake just in case she invited any ladies for morning coffee.

  ‘You see!’ Florrie said. ‘What did I say?’ But who would she ask, she wondered. As far as she knew her mistress wasn’t acquainted with anybody in Scarborough except the Sandersons, and somehow Florrie didn’t think it would be them.