“Hello,” said Mattias. “We’ve come to ask you if you’d like a new home. A good home where you’ll be warm and be able to eat every day ...”
He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence because the girl rudely interrupted him.
“Are you some kind of snooping priest or something?” she said sharply in the most rasping voice they’d ever heard. “We’re not interested. Go to hell!”
Gabriella’s first instinct was to leave quickly or at least cover her ears. In her refined world, this sort of creature was completely unheard of.
Surprise and dismay took her breath away but at that moment the pile of rags moved again and another, even smaller, head popped out.
The dim light that shone through a crack in the wall showed broad cheekbones, tousled hair and tiny eyes. It looked exactly like the face of a little troll.
“But ... which one of you is ten years old?” asked Mattias in a confused voice.
They both stared at him for a few minutes. Then the first girl spoke again. “What in hell’s name has it to do with you, eh? If you want a quickie just say so and don’t give me all that stuff about ‘fine homes.’ It doesn’t work on me, see! And you can keep your shitty hands off my little sister and all because I take care of her!”
Gabriella was still in shock. “How old are you?” she asked.
The disillusioned eyes of a child that had seen too much turned on her.
“Who’s this old sourpuss, then? Bet you’ve never had the pleasure of a real man, have you? But you look like you want to. Just you go outside for a bit and let me sort out the men, eh?”
“We asked how old you are,” repeated Kaleb insistently.
The girl smiled at him, a vulgar, brazen smile. “Young and willing, good sir! Do you want a try?”
“No, thank you. I prefer not to have other people’s cast-offs, touched by too many scabby fingers! We have no interest in you. It’s your sister we want to talk to.”
“Oh, I see. That’s what you’re after, is it? What’s the bailiff going to say about that, then?”
“Stop talking drivel! How old are you?”
“That’s none of your business. Anyway, I’m fifteen if you must know and my body’s sweet and tender as any baby lamb.”
Kaleb turned theatrically to his companions. “Has anyone got a pitchfork that I may safely lift this cadaver off her little sister?”
The older girl was enraged by this insult. The tongue-lashing she proceeded to give Kaleb described in great detail and at length the sort of man she thought he was and what he therefore ought to do with himself. This verbal onslaught was so awful that Gabriella felt quite sick and took a couple of steps down the stairs.
Without another word being said, the two men lifted up the little girl, who immediately started to struggle and kick, then started to scream like mad. Kaleb carried her downstairs while Mattias held back the older sister, who was spitting and swearing for all she was worth.
“Where are you taking her then, eh? Satan’s kidnappers, that’s what you are! I’ll report you to the law ...”
“You’ll do no such thing,” said Mattias, then let out a loud yell as she sank her teeth into him. “Would you deny your own little sister the chance to live in a fine home where she’ll go to school and in time become a decent young lady?”
“Bloody, damn bastard priest!”
“I’m not a priest – I’m a physician. I think you should be thoroughly examined and stop your disreputable way of life.”
“I’m doing just fine as I am and wouldn’t swap with anybody! What are you going to do with Frida?”
“We’re taking her to Graastensholm Manor,” Mattias managed to say as he wrestled desperately with the furious woman and listened to the screams of her little sister, Frida, outside. “Three other homeless children live there and they’ll be company for her. She’ll have three meals every day and all the care and affection you can’t give her.”
The shrew finally gave up. “Okay, take her then, you holier-than-thou son of a whore! Take her with you, then I won’t have to put up with her whining about food all the time. I tried to be nice to her, but I’m better off on my own. Much better! My customers don’t like it when she’s around.”
“Very well,” said Mattias. “Now show me your wallet.”
“No way! You’re trying to make me out to be a thief now, are you?”
“What do you think? Give me your wallet.”
“I don’t have one ...”
Mattias grabbed it, took it from her and felt how light it was.
“Here’s some money,” he said gently, “so at least you’ll not have to walk the streets today.”
She took all the coins and threw them away down the stairs with all her strength. “I don’t need your shitty money, you bloody saint,” she blazed. “You can stuff it!”
“As you will,” said Mattias quietly and started off down the stairs.
Before he’d reached the bottom, she’d darted in front of him, snapping up every coin she could find. As he went out into the street, Mattias paused and inclined his head in a polite gesture of farewell. In return, the girl shouted another obscenity and stuck her tongue out at him.
“Hurry up,” hissed Kaleb, when Mattias came back to he sleigh. He was holding is hand across Frida’s mouth and she was struggling to scream again. “We’re attracting attention and I can’t keep her quiet much longer.”
Mattias jumped aboard and they left at great speed, all three of them holding on to the little ten-year-old Frida, who seemed to think she was being driven away to purgatory. As they rushed along, Gabriella took one of her hands gently in her own.
“Frida, listen to me,” she said consolingly. “We only want to help you. You’ll not have to sleep on stairways any more. You won’t be hungry and you won’t have to watch terrible things. Now sit up and look around you. We’re going home to Graastensholm. You know Graastensholm, don’t you? You’re from that parish. Kaleb’s going to take his hand away now and please don’t make any loud noises.
“Bloody bitch!” shouted Frida as soon as her mouth was uncovered. “Bloody monsters!”
It was quite clear that she’d already learned a lot from her sister.
***
By the time they reached Graastensholm, Frida seemed to have resigned herself to the new situation. Either that, or she was too tired to fight any longer. They took off their outdoor clothes and relieved Frida of all her rags before putting her straight into the bathtub that Liv had already prepared. It took four of them to hold her in the water and bathe her while her mortal screams could be heard as far away as Linden Avenue. In no time they were all soaking wet and there was a puddle of water on the floor.
More than an hour passed before they were able to carry the well-scrubbed Frida – still not a peaceful child by any means – into the room where Eli lay watching, wide-eyed and scared.
Gabriella could see that the situation between the two girls would be anything but straightforward at first, and she quickly made up her mind as to what had to be done.
“I’ll move in here to be with the girls tonight,” she announced firmly. “They don’t know each other at all and Eli’s frightened. Besides, I think Frida is determined to run off!”
“A good idea,” said Kaleb. “We’ll move your bed in here.”
Those few words of recognition from Kaleb felt strangely wonderful to Gabriella. She looked quickly across at him, but he’d already turned his attention to other practical matters. That her heart was, above all else, crying out for affection of any kind, didn’t enter her mind. Anyway, she told herself, she didn’t want praise from such an uncultured man.
What Gabriella failed to notice was the exchange of knowing smiles between the other three as she hurried away down the corridor to collect her night things. The others knew that the remedy was wor
king!
***
That first night in the room with the two little girls was a difficult one for Gabriella. Frida remained angry and was obviously determined to go back to be with her big sister. She didn’t want to stay in her fine comfortable bed and she scared the sensitive, young Eli with her incessant swearing and misbehaviour.
Eventually Gabriella had to go and ask for help. Liv went to wake Mattias and Kaleb so that they could sit with Frida while Gabriella sat on Eli’s bed and held her hand.
“Be quiet now, Frida,” said Mattias soothingly. “You must understand that Eli is quite weak and needs rest.”
“That snotty kid!” yelled Frida. “I don’t want to share a room with a toddler.”
“You’ll be far better off here.”
“Like hell! I can take care of myself anywhere! I get more money in a day than you do in a year.”
“Then why were you living in a filthy stairway?”
“Because I wanted to.”
“But didn’t you freeze there? I had to bandage your feet because they had frostbite.”
“I can soon kick off your bloody bandages!”
“Of course you can but I think that would be foolish. Don’t you see that you can have a good life here with quite a lot of freedom to do as you wish? And you can go to school, too.”
“School!” snapped Frida scornfully. “That’s just for idiots.”
“On the contrary. It’s for people wise enough to want to learn something,” replied Kaleb, a little pompously, “and people who have some brains are those who learn most. But you’ll learn nothing anyway, so best not to try.”
“What d’you know about what I can learn? I’ve got more brains than you, so there!”
“So I can hear from the way you talk,” Kaleb said dryly.
The room fell silent for a few minutes. Then Frida pulled an ugly face and asked defiantly: “Are you going to be sitting here all night, then?”
“That depends on you,” said Kaleb expressionlessly.
“On me? I don’t want you here, you dirty old man.”
“We know that, but little Eli needs her sleep. She’s been treated badly and is afraid of everything.”
“Aah, poor little thing!” she said mockingly.
Then she paused and looked across at Eli, thinking for a moment. “How was she treated badly?”
“Beaten and starved,” said Kaleb. “That’s why we fetched her here ... so that she could be well again.”
Frida thought about what he’d just said. Then she sat up and swung her legs round to get out of bed. As she seemed to have quietened down a little, the two men didn’t try to stop her and she padded over to where Eli lay.
“What did they do it with?”
“A stick,” whispered Eli.
“Let’s see!”
Eli looked questioningly up at Gabriella, who nodded her consent. It seemed better to let them carry on now that they’d found something to talk about, she thought.
Eli pulled back the covers and let Frida look at the long bruises all over her body.
“Bloody hell! You’re skinny alright,” remarked Frida. “Just like a skeleton! Here! D’you want to see where I got beaten with a chain?”
“Ooh!” exclaimed Eli admiringly as Frida’s scars were revealed. “Those look horrible.”
As the girls swapped stories about the different forms of heartlessness they’d experienced, the three adults stayed in the background, listening.
“And did you have to work for that old cow?” asked Frida suspiciously, her bright watchful eyes wide open. “Work is the dumbest thing anyone can do ...”
When they heard this, the three adults looked quickly at one another and decided instantly that it was time to intervene.
“No one can live without working,” said Kaleb. “Although Eli was very little and she was made to do the work of two grown-ups. That was wrong.”
“Oi! You with the yellow mop on your head,” Frida answered pointedly, “you’re bloody stupid, so shut up! Got it?” and she turned her attention back to Eli.
Kaleb smiled broadly in response to this blunt rudeness and Gabriella had to stifle a grin. Glancing round in turn at Mattias and Kaleb, she made a little gesture suggesting that it was time for them to leave.
“Thank you very much, gentlemen,” she said wryly. “I believe I’ll be able to manage on my own now. The two girls seem to have found some common ground at last.”
Kaleb nodded in agreement and on his way out of the room, he surprised Frida by walking past the bed and patting her approvingly on the head. The loud-mouthed girl only scowled round at him and let rip with another fusillade of general abuse.
“Get your dirty fingers off me! Save it for the slattern over there because you’re not worth anything better. And she’s sort of spiky too, so mind you don’t prick yourself on her sharp edges!”
As Frida spoke, she pointed to Gabriella, and despite the progress she’d been making that day, this did nothing to improve Gabriella’s self-confidence.
“That wasn’t fair, Frida,” said Mattias, who’d not failed to notice that the girl’s cruel language had struck home. “I think Gabriella’s very pretty – and besides, people don’t all have to look alike.”
Frida sneered disdainfully and returned her attention to Eli’s bruises without further comment. Kaleb said nothing and Mattias followed him quietly out of the room.
Chapter 12
Eli’s health improved with every passing day. After a week, she was able to take part in the daily lessons with the two boys, Nikodemus and Little Thrush, and Frida. The boys were by now reasonably well behaved, but changing Frida’s ways and habits to make them acceptable was proving to be a more difficult task.
Frida was a terrible distraction for the others in Liv’s lessons. She’d rarely do as she was told. She often needed to leave the room and from time to time she’d say out loud that she thought everything was rubbish. She also encouraged the boys to join in her defiance against attempts to help them lead more worthwhile lives.
“Are you homesick for your old staircase?” Mattias asked her suddenly one day. “Do you still yearn to go back?”
Frida was taken by surprise at the question and suddenly looked lost. Then, trying to sound brave, she replied: “Of course I do!”
But her voice lacked conviction. More importantly, she’d not tried to run off as of late. Gabriella had been put in charge of the girls and spent most of her time in a bitter struggle, trying to help Eli’s kinder, gentler personality to win out over Frida’s unruly influence. Gabriella did her best, but the undertaking was far from easy.
Mattias looked after the children’s health, and Eli was of course the weakest – although all four still carried visible scars and signs of the heavy-handed treatment to which they’d been exposed.
Strangely enough, Mattias was the only grown-up that Frida would tolerate. The others suspected that she had a soft spot for him, but naturally that was something she’d never admit. She teased him and called him by the most grotesque nicknames but the fact remained that she continued to show an interest in him – a good deal of interest, in fact.
One day it was decided that they’d take Eli to visit her granddad, but at the last minute Mattias was told that his own granddad at the Eikeby farm needed him urgently. This left Kaleb to take care of the young girl. When Eli tried to insist that Gabriella went with them on the journey to see her granddad, Gabriella was suddenly overcome with her all-too familiar irrational feelings of inferiority. She simply refused to go.
“What’s the matter with the marquise this time?” demanded Kaleb in an irritable voice. “You must tell us the reason why!”
“I don’t feel that you want me to come,” she mumbled shyly. “That’s the reason.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Kaleb moaned dejectedly. �
�What I think is totally irrelevant! Can’t you, for once, stop thinking about your own feelings, marquise, and try to make Eli happy instead?”
Gabriella wasn’t able to summon a reply and Eli let out a little whoop of delight when she climbed into the sleigh beside her. She felt rebuked and ashamed of herself.
A wall of silence had descended between Kaleb and Gabriella as they sat on either side of Eli during the journey.
Gabriella told herself that she considered Kaleb to be extremely rude and common and therefore could find nothing to talk to him about. Realising how unpleasant it must be for Eli, she took the girl’s hand and squeezed it comfortingly.
Eli smiled cautiously back at Gabriella.
“You can obviously do it when you want to,” remarked Kaleb, who had observed events closely.
“It’s not easy when one has so much locked away inside,” answered Gabriella in a defensive tone. “You obviously don’t understand.”
“And what of your parents?” replied Kaleb, ignoring her statement.
“My parents?”
“Yes. Have you given any thought to how they must be feeling?”
Gabriella looked questioningly at him, but he returned her gaze with infuriating calmness. “They have their only daughter returned to them, rejected and seemingly without hope of becoming a wife. Can’t you understand their sadness? Imagine if you had a daughter of your own who’d gone through the same things that you have!”
Gabriella began to think about that and realised that she hadn’t given it any thought at all.
“They took all the public knocks on your behalf, didn’t they?” continued Kaleb, showing no mercy. “You were able to suffer and feel sorry for yourself in peaceful isolation while your mother had to sit down and write maybe hundreds of letters, each one a humiliation for her, explaining that your wedding had been cancelled – how the groom didn’t desire her daughter’s hand; that daughter on whom she’d lavished all her care and affection and of whom she was, of course, immensely proud. Your father, in his turn, had to cancel all the arrangements, rescind everything he’d put in place for the two of you – the house, the dowry, and so forth. And he did all that without a single word of complaint, didn’t he? Their concern was for you, their only daughter, but where was your concern for them?”
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