Off the Rails by Beryl Kingston Read Free Book Online Page A

visitor again. ‘He looks well, would ’ee say, Mrs Hardcastle?’
    ‘Blooming,’ Mrs Hardcastle said, but she was thinking, which is more than can be said for you, poor girl. ‘Great strong boy!’

4
    L ITTLE M ILLY S MITH was a very good baby and by the time she was four months old she was delectably plump and pretty. Jane had almost forgotten that her eyes had been dark blue when she was born. Now they were pansy brown and her original mop of straight dark hair had been replaced by a head of thick fair curls.
    ‘Th’art the dearest little thing what ever was,’ Jane told her and the baby smiled as if she quite agreed. But the smile brought sad thoughts. She was still a fatherless child, however dear she was, and she still hadn’t seen her grandmother. Don’t ’ee fret, Jane thought, kissing her dear little curledfingers. I’ll be mother and father to ’ee both so I will. Tha’lt want for nowt, I swear to ’ee. And that vile George Hudson can rot in hell, what I hopes and prays he will. But what she really wanted was to see her mother.
    She’d written a letter to her on the day the child was born, naturally, but it was weeks before the carter arrived and could be asked to deliver it. And now a fourth letter was being written and there were times when despite all the good things that were happening to her, Jane wept private tears of anguished homesickness. If only Milly wasn’t such a very little baby and if only it wasn’t such a very long way to Scrayingham Church.
    September came in that year with gales and driving rain and October was no better, for now they had to endure mists and fogs. Scrayingham Church seemed even further away than ever, even though Milly was now sitting up on her mother’s knee before the fire, looking about her and as warm and sturdy a child as you could hope to see. The others weren’t faring so well in the colder weather; Audrey’s hands were so chapped and raw she said she was ashamed to put them near our precious and Aunt Tot had a rheumy cold that wouldn’t go away.
    ‘That dratted wind goes straight to your chest,’ she said. ‘You must take care our babba’s wrapped up good an’ warm if you means to take her to church come Sunday. I’ll look out a little blanket for her. We don’t want her to take cold. That’ud never do.’
    Jane was thinking fast. Was this the chance she’d been hoping for? With a blanket, the long walk might be possible. ‘Well now, Aunt,’ she said carefully , ‘as to that, I been a-thinking.’
    ‘Oh aye,’ her aunt said. ‘And what great thoughts have come to ’ee?’
    ‘What I been thinking,’ Jane confessed, ‘is I would like to go to church at Scrayingham one Sunday, if ’ee were so minded, to see my ma. I do so want to see my ma. ’Twould be a fair old trudge but I don’t mind a long walk and if Milly’s wrapped in a blanket I can keep her out of t’cold. ’Tis five months now since I saw Ma and that’s a mortal long time.’
    The longing on her face was so extreme that Aunt Tot was torn with pity for her. ‘You’ll have to face bad looks if you’re a-going there,’ she warned. ‘Scrayingham’s a different parish to ours. You’re known there.’
    ‘Aye,’ Jane said sadly. ‘I know. But I do so want to see my ma.’
    ‘I tell ’ee what I’ll do,’ Aunt Tot said. ‘I’ll see if old Jem’ll take you. He might well. He’s a good man and one church is as good as another, when all’s said and done. You’ll be warmer in t’cart than on foot, and that way you can be took straight to t’church gate and brought straight back again after t’service so there’ll be less time for t’gossips to put their knives in.’
    So two Sundays later, at long last, Jane was driven to Scrayingham Church with the baby in her arms, wrapped up snug in her shawl and herblanket. It was a lovely moment. When Jem clicked to the horse and set off, she was tremulous with excitement but after a while her heart began to crumple