Snowflakes in the Wind Page 4

  Now it was past midnight and the house was in darkness. Abby had lain awake for hours, but for the first time since Christmas Eve her mind was clear and she knew exactly what she was going to do. And the first step was terrifying. She had to go back into the house she’d always known as home, back into the kitchen where she had found her mother, and everything in her recoiled from the prospect.

  Only the knowledge that there was no other option had her sliding silently out of bed and dressing in the icy darkness. If she and Robin had any chance at all of escape, they would need enough money to see them on their way. She had no idea what train tickets cost, but if there were any coins in the little pot where her mother had kept the rent money, it would be a start.

  Carrying her boots in one hand she tiptoed out of the room and down the stairs, mindful of Mr and Mrs Hammond asleep in the front room as she reached the hall. Once in the kitchen, she pulled on her boots and then her coat, her heart thudding fit to burst. Slipping the bolt on the back door she opened it slowly, hoping it wouldn’t creak.

  It was snowing heavily, the big fat flakes being whirled in a frenzied dance by the raw north-east wind. Picking her way carefully and mindful of the ice the new fall of snow was covering, Abby made her way out of the Hammonds’ yard and into her own. As she approached the house in the dark silent night a fear settled on her, the memory of how her mother had looked in death causing her mouth to become dry with terror. She wanted to remember her mam as she had been before that night, but try as she might, she couldn’t.

  After standing for some moments outside the back door, she nerved herself to lift the latch only to find the door was locked.

  Of course it would be, she chided herself. The constable would have made sure the house was secure – that was what the police did. Retracing her steps she opened the door of the privy and felt in the darkness for the spare key, praying with all her might it would still be in its hiding-place. When her fingers closed over it she felt weak at the knees, whether from relief or the knowledge that there was now nothing stopping her from entering the house she wasn’t sure.

  It took all her willpower to insert the key into the lock and open the door, and when it swung open she stood for long moments before she could force her legs to carry her into the kitchen.

  The white world outside the window provided the faintest of illumination inside the house, but it was enough for her to grope her way to where her mother had kept a small stock of candles for emergencies. After she’d lit one, the flickering flame proved to be even more frightening than the darkness, sending grotesque moving shadows into every corner of the room.

  Telling herself she didn’t believe in ghosts and goblins, she found her eyes drawn to the spot where her mother had fallen. Someone had cleared up the remains of the pot roast and the pan was nowhere to be seen; everything was clean and orderly.

  Abby’s gaze moved to the pot of white hyacinths in the middle of the table. They were drooping, their sweetly scented blooms dying and their stems bent over for lack of water. On one of the rare occasions when her da left the house he had bought the hyacinths, then just bulbs in the pot, for her mam with his tobacco money. Her mam had been so thrilled when she had come in from work that day. That had been a nice evening, a lovely one.

  Swallowing hard against the lump in her throat, Abby made herself walk over to the range. Apart from every Sunday morning when she and her mother raked out the warm ashes and black-leaded the range from top to bottom, she couldn’t ever remember it without a fire burning in the open grate. But the range was cold and dead. She looked round the kitchen. It was familiar and yet not familiar; without her mam it was no longer home.

  On her tiptoes, she reached up to the wooden mantelpiece above the range where the pot holding the rent money stood, beside the big kitchen clock. There was a chink of coins as she lifted it down and inside were a sixpence and two shillings. Momentarily her heavy heart lifted. It was something.

  Putting the coins into her pocket, she replaced the pot exactly where it had been and then lifted the candle in its metal holder which she’d placed in the middle of the table. She had to go upstairs and fetch the remainder of her and Robin’s clothes; they would need them. So scared that her stomach was swirling and making her feel in dire need of the privy, Abby crept into the hall. Once upstairs in the room she and her brother had shared, she stripped the pillowcase off her pillow and filled it with the few clothes she and Robin possessed. Her breath coming in jerky gasps, she left the room, only to stand hesitating on the landing as she looked towards the closed door of her parents’ bedroom. For a moment she could believe that they were in there, sleeping, and that this was all a nightmare she’d had. But it wasn’t.

  Tears streaming down her cheeks, she retraced her steps to the kitchen, but just as she was about to blow out the candle she caught sight of her mother’s hat and coat lying across one of the kitchen chairs. Putting the pillowcase and the candle on the table, she walked across and lifted the coat to her, burying her face in its folds as she tried to smother her sobs. She would never see her mam again, never be able to touch her and be held by her, never have her mam’s arms keeping her safe. It was too much to bear . . .

  How long the storm of grief lasted she didn’t know, but at the end of it she found herself sitting in a huddle on the floor with the coat held against her heart. Wearily she lifted her head and forced herself to get to her feet, so spent she felt that if she were to die right at that moment she wouldn’t care.

  It was as she tenderly folded the coat back on the chair that an image of the kitchen table strewn with groceries and other bits and pieces came into her mind. The table was devoid of them now and presumably they’d been disposed of, but it reminded her that Christmas Eve had been a pay day for her mother.

  It felt wrong to feel in the pockets of her mother’s coat for her purse, and when her fingers closed over it, even more wrong to take it out and open it. Telling herself not to be so silly and that her mam would approve of what she was doing, Abby tipped the contents of the worn leather purse onto the kitchen table. A number of coins rolled out but it was the folded ten-shilling note that brought her eyes opening wide.

  Her hands trembling, Abby added the two shillings and sixpence from her pocket to the money on the table and counted up. Seventeen and six. She breathed out slowly. Seventeen shillings and sixpence! It was a small fortune. They could go and find their grandfather now.

  She gathered up the coins and note and returned them to the purse, stuffing it in the pocket of her white pinafore. A sudden feeling of panic that someone would find her here and demand to know what she was doing and confiscate the purse had her heart racing. Quickly blowing out the candle, she returned it to its box at the bottom of a cupboard and let herself out of the back door, locking it and replacing the key in the privy.

  It was still snowing heavily, her earlier footsteps already obscured which was all to the good. Entering the Hammonds’ backyard, she was vitally conscious of the purse in the pocket of her pinafore, and when she stealthily opened the back door she bent and took off her boots so as not to make a sound. On straightening up, she found herself staring straight into the eyes of Shirley Hammond.

  Shock brought her hands over her mouth to stifle the scream she’d almost let out, and it was Shirley who whispered, ‘Where on earth have you been? And don’t say the privy cos I just went there myself. I woke up a little while ago and realized you weren’t in bed and thought you’d been took bad, so I came to check. What have you been doing?’

  Abby stared at her, unable to think of a thing to say.

  ‘Why are you dressed?’ Shirley went on. ‘It’s snowing a blizzard out there and it’s not the night for a little walk. Come on, spit it out else I’ll call Mam.’

  ‘No, don’t.’ The threat brought Abby back to life. ‘I – I went next door, that’s all.’

  ‘To your house?’

  Abby nodded.

  ‘Why?’ Shirley stared at her in a
mazement. It was the last place she would have expected Abby to venture in view of what had happened, and she, for one, wouldn’t have wanted to go in broad daylight let alone in the middle of the night.

  ‘I – I wanted to see . . .’

  ‘What? What did you want to see?’ Shirley pressed.

  Abby’s shoulders slumped. ‘I know they want to put us in the workhouse, me and Robin. They do, don’t they?’ Without waiting for confirmation, she went on, ‘And I can’t let that happen. I went to see if there was any rent money I could use to go and see my grandfather.’

  ‘Your grandfather?’ Shirley took Abby’s arm, leading her to one of the kitchen chairs and pushing her down on it before she pulled one out for herself and sat facing her. ‘All right,’ she said softly. ‘Start from the beginning and tell me.’

  Abby started from the beginning as she knew it, explaining about the trip she and her mother and Robin had taken when her grandmother had died, and finishing with the fact that she felt she and Robin had to present themselves in front of her mother’s father to have any chance of him agreeing that they could stay. ‘He was still angry with my mam,’ she murmured miserably, ‘but I know if I can see him and explain what’s happened, he’ll take us in.’ She didn’t know, but felt it appropriate to say in the circumstances.

  ‘And you don’t think he’d do that if he was notified by the authorities properly?’ Shirley whispered.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Abby’s bottom lip trembled. ‘My mam said him still being angry with her was a matter of pride. She said my grandfather’s people are a law unto themselves and unless you’re one of them you wouldn’t understand. Even the way they name their bairns is handed down. My mam’s eldest sister was named after her mam’s mother, the second girl after her father’s mother and my mam after her mother and so on. Same with the lads ’cept the eldest son is named after the father’s father, but my grandparents didn’t have any boys, just girls. My mam said you can trace a person’s place in the family by his or her name and antecedents. Family is everything to them so when my mam ran off with my da . . .’

  ‘She committed the unforgivable sin,’ Shirley finished thoughtfully. ‘Aye, I see. And he wouldn’t want to lose face. Whereas if you and Robin are standing there in front of him pleading your case . . . But what would you do if he won’t give you a home?’

  ‘I suppose that wouldn’t be up to us. He’d see to it the authorities were notified. But I know he’ll take us in if I talk to him, Shirley. I know he will.’

  Shirley didn’t know what to think. ‘I’ll say one thing,’ she murmured, ‘you’re a plucky little lass. How did you think you were going to travel to . . . Where is it? Linton, you say?’

  Abby nodded. ‘It’s near Kelso. I remember my mam saying that. Kelso’s a town but Linton is tiny. I can only remember a school and smithy and the mill house and the farms.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Please, Shirley, don’t say anythin’ to your mam.’

  Shirley looked into the young face. Abby was lovely, she had always thought it. The child’s skin was as smooth as satin and her eyes were unlike any Shirley had seen. Large and heavily lashed, their colour was a mercurial blue-grey, seeming to change with the child’s emotions, but it was Abby’s hair that picked her out from the other bairns. The silver-blonde fairness was unusual in itself, but when added to the fact that it was thick and gleamed like raw silk it made the child unique in these parts. Abby’s mother had been pretty but Abby was beautiful, and she was a nice little lass, that was the thing. How would she fare in the workhouse? She’d carry the stigma all her life and you heard such awful stories about the place; Shirley found she couldn’t bear the thought of such innocent loveliness being crushed and trampled underfoot. There was more to being alive than being housed and fed.

  Impulsively, Shirley said, ‘You know my Len works for the railway?’

  Abby shook her head. She had no idea how Shirley’s fiancé earned his living.

  ‘Well, he does.’ Shirley took one of Abby’s small cold hands between her warm ones as she leaned forward. ‘If I ask him, he’ll help us.’

  Abby’s heart gave a great leap. Shirley would never know how much the ‘us’ meant when she had been feeling so lost and alone. ‘You . . . you won’t tell your mam about us getting away?’

  ‘Only after the two of you are on your way. I’ll have to tell her then as she’d be worried.’ Shirley didn’t dwell on what her mother would say; there would be an almighty row, that was for sure. ‘And even then I won’t let on exactly where you’re going, but if it all works out will you write and let Mam know you’re safe?’

  Abby nodded eagerly, ‘Thank you, thank you so much.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Len tomorrow.’ Shirley paused. Her mother had told her that the police had arranged with the Board of Guardians that Abby and Robin were to be admitted into the workhouse the following week, before the schools opened again after the Christmas holiday. The police would have taken them earlier but for her mam saying there was no rush and that the children could stay to see the New Year in with the family. Shirley knew her mother felt bad about Abby and Robin ending up in the workhouse and she hoped that would temper her mother’s reaction when she admitted her part in getting the bairns away. ‘Have you got everything you need to leave now?’

  Again Abby nodded. ‘I’ve got our clothes in there,’ she said, pointing to the pillowcase at her feet. ‘Will seventeen shillings and sixpence be enough money for the train tickets?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that.’ The cost of the tickets was the least of it, Shirley thought soberly, as the enormity of what she was going to do swept over her. If this went wrong there’d be the devil to pay. ‘Now let’s get to bed and we’ll see what Len says, all right? And don’t say anything to Robin, not yet.’

  ‘No, no, I won’t, he’s only a bairn,’ Abby said, as though she was an adult herself.

  Shirley smiled but Abby’s words added to her misgivings. The lass was only nine years old and here she was, aiding and abetting Abby’s hare-brained scheme to travel upcountry to find a grandfather who’d expressed no desire to have anything to do with his grandchildren. Whatever was Len going to say?

  Len said plenty, and by the time he had finished Shirley was near to tears. It was only then that Len took her in his arms and murmured, ‘Come on, come on, I’m just thinking of the trouble you are liable to find yourself in if this goes belly-up.’

  Shirley sniffed, nestling her head under Len’s chin as she put her arms round his waist. ‘Imagine if it was your Elsie facing the workhouse,’ she said softly. Len’s baby sister was the same age as Abby and Len doted on her, the rest of his siblings being brothers. ‘Wouldn’t you want someone to help her?’

  Above her head, Len smiled wryly. Shirley knew which buttons to press, he thought ruefully. ‘Aye, I would.’ He moved her to arm’s length, keeping hold of her. ‘And I tell you now I want me head testing for agreeing to this.’

  Shirley grinned, throwing her arms round his neck. ‘I love you, Leonard Bell.’

  ‘Aye, an’ you can cut out the soft soap an’ all.’

  Shirley’s smile widened. She had lain awake the rest of the night after she had talked to Abby, worrying that Len would come down on the side of law and reason and refuse to be part of what was a risky venture at best. But with Len on board suddenly it was doable.

  Shirley was telling herself this selfsame thing three days later as she stood with Abby and Robin on the platform of Sunderland’s Central station. It was the last day of December, New Year’s Eve, and all over the town housewives were baking for the evening’s festivities when they invited neighbours and friends in for some jollification. Then, on the last stroke of midnight, one of their number would hammer on the door of the house holding a piece of coal in one hand and a bottle in the other, giving it their blessing as ‘first foot’ as they entered. Betty Hammond always made a big thing of New Year’s Eve, and Shirley was hoping her mother’s busyness would delay her noticing Ab
by and Robin’s absence.

  She sighed silently as she glanced down at the two children, one on either side of her. At this moment they were supposed to be playing in the back lane with some of the other bairns, but Abby and Robin had slipped away once no one was looking to meet her at the end of the street before the three of them had made their way to the train station. For her part she was going to plead a stomach upset as her excuse for being late into work that morning, but she didn’t doubt that Miss Vickers, the supervisor at the laundry where she was employed, would be less than pleased. Tongue on her like cheese wire, had Miss Vickers.

  Shirley passed the cloth bag she was holding, which contained the children’s spare clothes, to Abby, saying, ‘Here’s your things.’ She often took a few bits and pieces to the laundry to wash and press in her lunch hour – it was one of the perks of the job – so no one at home had passed comment when she’d left that morning with the bulging bag. Delving into her handbag, she then brought out the two tickets that Len had bought for the children. ‘And here’s your tickets. Now Len’s had a word with the conductor, Mr Irvin, and asked him to keep an eye on you, all right? You’re travelling up the coast till you get to Tweedmouth and then you change trains, but Mr Irvin will see to all that. And here’s some sandwiches and a bottle of pop for the journey. Make them last, won’t you,’ she added to Robin who had eyed the sandwiches appreciatively.

  ‘Thank you.’ Abby’s voice was small; standing here in the busy station she felt overwhelmed by the size of it and what she had embarked on. Over the last days she had asked several times to see her father but to no avail; now she felt she would never see him again. And she had wanted to tell him she didn’t believe he had meant to hurt her mam. She kept remembering that day when he had sat huddled under the kitchen table after Robin had fallen off his bed upstairs. Her da hadn’t known where he was or what he was doing, and he’d had the same look on his face when she had found him and her mam on Christmas Eve. She shuddered at the memory.