One day she’d find him wherever he was. She could be patient. Very soon she’d be sixteen – her birthday just over three weeks away – grown up; and she intended to find him and make him sorry for what he’d done to Mum, as well as to her, no matter how long it took.
What felt worse was the shame. Had she been partly to blame? Was it her? A phrase came dimly to mind, something said at some wedding or other: ‘He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.’
The words came out of the blue, pulling up sharp. Was she really without sin? Had she enticed him in some way? Should she have fought harder? But, still a child, she’d been too frightened to. He’d forced her. It wasn’t her fault. But what if it had been? Those who are without sin…
Viciously she pushed the thought away from her. His sin, not hers!
Three
Watched by Doctor Lowe’s housemaid though totally ignored by his ample-bodied cook, Ellie and her sister stood awkward and ill at ease in the large kitchen, which felt vast compared to the poky one they were used to.
Those days were behind them now. Their old home lay empty, awaiting new occupants. If their father went there in the next few days another family would be there. Mrs Sharp would tell him what had happened, of course.
Ellie wondered how affected he’d be, hearing of Mum’s death. It would be a shock, obviously – he was human after all; but how long would it take for him to get over it? Not long she suspected. Would he feel any guilt about having deserted her when she’d been so ill? Ellie didn’t think so. He might even feel relieved, able to get on with his own life without interference. Again came that curling tendril of hatred inside her.
What of the future? As she waited to be looked over by Doctor Lowe’s wife, she wondered if she had been too quick in asking Mrs Sharp not to tell Dad where she’d now be living. Would he demand her and Dora back? Would he want a couple of kids around him mucking up his life? For her part she didn’t need him spoiling her chance of a new life, if only as a scullery maid.
Something told her that this lowly position might not last too long. She could be on to something better. She kept thinking of Mrs Lowe’s words, gasped out behind a trembling hand: ‘She looks so like…’ and the brittle way her husband had cut off what appeared to have been a reference to his daughter’s likeness to herself. It might benefit her to play on that. Not too soon of course. Unable to cope with this apparent resemblance to his dead daughter, her new employer might dismiss her. She’d have to tread carefully.
She felt Dora’s hand slip into hers. ‘I feel really out of place ’ere,’ Dora whispered. ‘I wish we ’adn’t come. I feel in the way.’
Ellie glanced down at her. ‘We’ll be all right. I’ll make sure of it.’
Dora had been so excited when she had told her of their good fortune. ‘So I won’t have to go and live with Mrs Sharp after all,’ she cried, having been told about their neighbour’s kind offer to take her in.
‘Only for a while,’ Mrs Sharp had said. ‘Until things settle. I couldn’t have her for too long because there ain’t much room for me own kids. But I couldn’t see a child like her with nowhere to go or be stuck in an orphanage somewhere, poor little lamb, when I can be of some ’elp, at least until you find some work and somewhere cheaper to live.’
Dora had hated the idea, crying, ‘I don’t want ter live with strangers!’
‘They’re not strangers,’ Ellie had said. ‘They’re neighbours and you’re friends with Cathie and Bertie Sharp. You get on well together and Bertie’s your special friend. You know he likes you a lot.’
‘But not to live in the same ’ouse,’ had come the protest. ‘Their ’ome’s crowded and I might be asked to share the same room with ’im.’
‘No you won’t,’ Ellie told her. ‘The girls sleep upstairs. Their brothers share the back room downstairs.’
Her sister’s response had been an enormous shrug, but now of course there was no need to worry about that any more. Ellie stopped thinking of it as she saw the doctor’s wife come into the kitchen.
Mary Lowe’s gentle brown eyes took in the two young people standing in the centre of the room. They looked lost, while the kitchen resounded to the clash of saucepans that Mrs Jenkins was setting on the large black-leaded range in readiness for the family’s midday meal. Mary gave each girl a smile that was as tremulous and awkward as their own response – that of the younger one shy, the older with a fraction more confidence.
None could have mistaken them for other than sisters, both of them auburn-haired and dimple-chinned, with narrow cheeks that would fill out and blossom with colour with some good food inside them. Both had the same firm set of the lips, the same pert nose, the same wide eyes with the darker rim of the iris quite sharply and startlingly defined.
But it was the older girl who drew her attention as if by a magnet and again she felt a lump inside her breast, the stinging threat of tears. There was no doubt her husband had engaged her because of this uncanny resemblance to their dead daughter. It was more than that. It was the posture, the smile, a movement. She’d argued against his engaging her but had finally given in, as
