Storm Child (2 page)

Four

Charlotte woke early as the thin November sun lit her room with
lemony light. For a moment, she forgot the events of the previous night. It was
only when she turned over that she saw, where she had tucked into her own
blankets, the baby, sleeping peacefully. Charlotte rubbed her eyes and
scrambled quietly out of bed, taking care not to disturb it.  Without
stopping to pull her bed socks back on, she hurried to her mother’s room and
gently tapped on the door.

‘What is it now?’

‘Sorry to
disturb you mother…’ she paused, wondering how she was going to explain that she
had been out on the heath in the middle of the night in the damp and
cold.  She took a deep breath. ‘Mother, can I show you something?’

‘I cannot believe that you went out in that terrible storm!’
Charlotte’s mother stood in doorway of Charlotte’s room in her nightdress. Her
plaited hair draped long over her shoulder, copper red threaded with gold, and
although she was pale and washed out from her recent bout of illness, it was
clear why she had received so many offers of marriage when Charlotte’s father
had died the previous year.

‘But, mother….’

‘Whatever you heard out there,
you should have left alone, or come to wake me.  You never do that again –
understand?’

Charlotte hung her head. ‘I’m
sorry.’

Her mother sighed, reached over
for Charlotte and pulled her close and tight, kissing her on the forehead. ‘I
know you meant well. Let’s be friends now.’

‘How do you feel this morning?’
Charlotte asked. ‘Do you think your infection has passed?’

‘Well, I suppose as I just kissed
you I must do,’ she laughed. ‘So what shall we do with this baby of yours?

Charlotte twisted herself round
in her mother’s arms so she could see the bed where the baby was still
sleeping. ‘I was hoping you would know.’

Charlotte’s
mother approached the bed. ‘Pretty little thing,’ she said thoughtfully peering
into the blankets, ‘who would abandon a baby on a night like that?  And
you say there was no one to be seen?’ Charlotte shook her head. ‘I wonder if
this poor child’s guardian is lying somewhere injured or ill.  Perhaps
they were hidden from you in the dark last night.  I’ll get dressed and
take another look over the heath and you keep watch on the child.’

As soon as the front door closed, the baby woke. First it
yawned and rubbed its eyes, gazing around in bright interest at its new
surroundings. But this was for only a short while, and then it suddenly
grimaced, stretched into a scowl and erupted into a deafening wail. Charlotte
picked it up and started to rock it in her arms, murmuring soothing words, but
it had no effect. She walked to the window and tried to distract it by showing
it the scene outside the window. But still it cried. Charlotte suddenly
realised that its clothes were wet.

‘You must need a nappy,’ she
mumbled.

She started the search for some
spare cloth. There were tea towels and cleaning cloths in the kitchen but they
were harsh and rough. Spare clothes?  She was quite sure that they didn’t
have much in the way of spare clothing; they barely had enough dresses to see
them through the week, but perhaps there was something she had outgrown lying
forgotten in a cupboard. 

What she found in the old chest
in her mother’s room made her forget her task, just for a moment, as her eyes
brimmed with tears.  Inside the chest, were three carefully wrapped brown
paper parcels tied with string. Charlotte slipped the knot on a parcel and
opened it. Inside were some of George’s clothes, freshly washed and dried. She
picked up a soft vest and held it to her face. Her mother was still clinging to
her son with everything she had.  She shook herself and dried her eyes.
Re-wrapping the parcel, she put it to one side and dug deeper into the chest,
finally finding a moth-eaten cotton shawl which she set about cutting into
pieces to fit the baby. Rushing back into the bedroom she noticed with horror
that the baby had somehow left the bed and was now crawling and clambering
around the floor. She clearly had a lot to learn about babies.

When she had finished tying the
baby’s nappy in a cumbersome knot, Charlotte picked it up for a cuddle. 
The baby gurgled in cute little rasps and tried to squeeze Charlotte’s nose.

Just as she was thinking about
what to feed the baby, Charlotte’s mother swept in, bringing the crisp smell of
cold fields blustering into the house with her. She unwound her shawl from
where it was tightly wrapped around her shoulders and smoothed stray hairs that
had been tugged free by the bitter wind back into her bun.  She smiled and
gestured to the makeshift nappy.

‘Very resourceful.’

‘How old do you think the baby
is?’

‘I’d say perhaps a year, perhaps
a little more? It’s hard to tell.’

‘So what can she eat?’

‘She?’

Charlotte nodded.

 ‘Of course, you changed her
nappy. I would imagine she’s been weaned so she shouldn’t have much trouble
with bread and milk.’ She looked at the baby thoughtfully. ‘I suppose we’d
better think about what to do with you, little one.’

‘So you didn’t find anyone on
your search?’

‘No. I didn’t.  I did find
the basket, though. I left it out on the porch. Run and fetch it would you?’

Charlotte handed the child to her
mother and went out to get the basket. It was damp from being outside overnight
and there was a ragged silver line traced along one of its rattan sides from a
curious visiting slug, but otherwise perfectly intact. She dragged it over to
the cavernous stone fireplace and set it to one side to dry.

‘We may need that tonight if Mr
Finch is not available. I’m not sure she should be sleeping in your bed.’

‘Are we taking her to Mr Finch?’

‘We must. We cannot keep
her.’ 

Charlotte felt her spine ripple
in a cold shiver. She had only encountered Mr Finch a few times in her short
life, but he had made a lasting impression. Not a good one, either.

‘We can’t take her to Mr Finch,
surely?’

‘I’m sorry, Charlotte.  I
wish it weren’t so.’

‘Can she at least stay tonight?
The sky looks as though it holds another storm.’

Charlotte’s
mother glanced out of the kitchen window.  The morning’s bright sunlight
was rapidly fading and low, leaden clouds were billowing across the sky to
press down onto the distant trees. ‘I fear you may be right. Then, she can stay
tonight.’

They had tea – boiled eggs followed by fruitcake. Outside,
the heath succumbed to the creeping dusk. Charlotte’s mother set about lighting
the lamps and building the fire, transforming their cottage into a cosy haven
of warmth. Charlotte, content and comfortable, sat on a large cushion near the
fire with her arms gathered round the baby perched on her knee, and gazed down
at her.

‘It’s such a shame we don’t have
any dresses to put on her.’ She stroked the baby’s rough gown. ‘Don’t you have
anything old of mine that you have kept?’ As soon as she had said it, Charlotte
wished she hadn’t, remembering the chest full of George’s clothes that she had
found earlier in the day.

‘No, dear. I don’t have anything.
Besides, in the morning we shall take her to Mr Finch and he will find her a
proper home.’

‘In the orphanage?’ Charlotte
asked. She was hoping that her mother had forgotten about taking the child to
Mr Finch, or would at least go off the idea.

‘I expect so.’

‘It must be an awful place.’

Her mother paused, thinking about
what to say next. ‘I have a feeling it may be. But in this life, Charlotte,
things are not always happy. It is God’s will and His plan that things are a
certain way, and whatever He means for the child is what will happen, no matter
what we do to try to change things. The baby must go to the orphanage if she is
an orphan. And as we cannot find a guardian, we must assume that she is.’

Charlotte looked down again at
the little girl, who had now stretched herself over Charlotte’s knee, her long
lashes dropping over her dark eyes as she grew quiet and ready for sleep.

‘Mother….can’t we look after
her?’ She asked falteringly, even though she knew what the answer must be.

‘Charlotte, I’m sorry, but we
don’t have enough money.’

‘But…’

Her mother
held up a hand. ‘This conversation is at an end.’ She rose from her chair and
scooped up the sleepy infant, placing her gently into her now dry cot near to
the low-burning fire.  The flames made warm flickering shadows on the
baby’s face as she snuggled down into her freshly dried blankets with a tiny,
contented sigh. Charlotte knew her mother’s tone meant just that; the
conversation was at an end, and there was no point trying to argue.

It took Charlotte a long time to find sleep.  Usually,
she would put out the candle, but she wanted to keep it burning this night in
case the baby became frightened of the dark. She kept a vigilant watch, every
now and then peering over the side of her bed into the cot, only to find the
infant as peaceful as the last time she had checked.  When the candle had
burned down to a spitting stub, she finally blew it out and succumbed to sleep
and her restless dreams.  Not filled with images of George, as they
usually were, but with pictures of the baby, unhappy and hungry in a cold, grey
room, high walled and damp, surrounded by other babies and children, all
crying, all unloved and unclaimed. God watched impassively from above and Mr
Finch’s booming voice reached for her from out of the darkness: SILENCE OR
THERE WILL BE NO FOOD.

Charlotte
twitched and woke.  Outside, the moon was high, its milky light creeping
in through her small window. There was a faint sob from her mother’s room, and
Charlotte knew that she had been dreaming too.

When Charlotte woke, her mother had already started to build
up the low fire to make breakfast and it cracked, smoky with new fuel, the
flames licking their way through the dark peat her mother had just laid onto
it.  She never let the fire in the small, stone flagged kitchen go out
completely during the winter months as it was such a painstaking task to start
it again.  Charlotte came into the kitchen, yawned and dropped to the
floor, holding out her hands to its friendly warmth.

‘Good morning, Charlotte.’ Her
mother raised an eyebrow.

 ‘Sorry. Good morning.’

Charlotte’s mother looked more
closely, narrowing her eyes. ‘Didn’t you sleep well?’

‘No.’ Charlotte answered more
truthfully than she wanted to.

‘The baby kept you awake?’

‘No,’ Charlotte replied quickly.
‘I had the most terrible dreams… about the orphanage.’ She looked up at her
mother hopefully.

‘I haven’t changed my mind. And
in a few days, you will have forgotten all about this business.’

Charlotte’s mother was wrong; she
would not forget about this for a long time.

The baby
continued to sleep through breakfast.  In the end, Charlotte’s mother woke
her so she could be fed before the long walk to the village to see Mr Finch,
who took care of the parish poor. Though, Charlotte wasn’t sure that
take
care
was how the way would describe it.  The workhouses and orphanages
around the area were notoriously foreboding places, but the one Mr Finch took
care of was the worst of all, or so she had heard. Charlotte was not yet an
adult, but she understood how close to the workhouse she, George and her mother
had come after her father had died, and every day she thanked God for the tiny
cottage out on the heath that they had somehow managed to keep. Her mother took
in odd jobs; sewing, crocheting, even singing lessons.  Mother grew food
and they had a goat and a few precious chickens (fewer by the month as they
were picked off by foxes) to make the money stretch further. Charlotte knew how
hard it was for her mother to do all this, especially after George had died and
all she wanted to do was curl into a ball and never speak again.  But she
did it for Charlotte, her one remaining child.

The morning turned out to be fine. The sun, low on the
horizon, skimmed the heath, its dazzling winter rays reflected off the
dew-soaked bracken. It was so bright that Charlotte and her mother had
difficulty seeing the road ahead. The raw wind of the night had settled into a
brisk, chill breeze, whipping the smell of damp vegetation into the air. 
Charlotte’s mother held the baby, tightly wrapped in a blanket, against her
chest. The baby burrowed into her shoulder to keep warm, quiet and subdued.
Charlotte was silent, deep in thought, her eyes downcast, partly to concentrate
on her footing, but in part, to hide the sadness. Every step closer they took
to the village, and the imposing sandstone house of Mr Finch, the greater
Charlotte’s sadness became. She still could not quite believe that her mother
was going to leave the baby there.

Eventually, Charlotte looked up
and blinked with surprise as the house loomed before them.  She had hardly
noticed that they had walked so quickly, or that the house had been rearing in
front of them for some few minutes.

‘Charlotte, would you pull the
bell for me?’

Charlotte stepped forward and
yanked on the long cord. The bell sounded solemnly somewhere inside the
house.  There was a brief silence, then the door was opened by a grey
haired lady with a ruddy face that reminded Charlotte of freshly kneaded dough.
Charlotte curtsied shortly.

‘Mrs Harding… Miss Harding. Good
morning to you both.’ The lady greeted them with a brisk courtesy and then
peered at the bundle in Charlotte’s mother’s arms with a bright, inquisitive
look. ‘What’s this then?’

Charlotte’s mother turned the
baby’s face the lady. ‘We found this little one, abandoned, out on the heath.’

The lady clicked her tongue in
disapproval. ‘How dreadful.  I suppose you’ll be wanting Mr Finch then.’