War Baby by Lizzie Lane Read Free Book Online Page B

usually called him. He was a scruffy boy from a large family. On account of there being rarely enough food to eat at home, he had become a skilled hunter of anything edible. This included salmon, trout, rabbits and pheasants.
    Deacon clipped the back of his head with the flat of his hand. ‘She’s a girl, Ralph. Girls wear pretty dresses. Haven’t you noticed?’
    Ralphie, scornful of anything sissy, wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve in an act of contempt. He’d never actually quite taken it on board that Frances was a girl. From the moment she’d arrived in the forest, she’d joined in every scrape they’d ever got up to and could climb a tree quicker than anyone else.
    â€˜What colour?’ Merlyn repeated. Merlyn had also spent most of her childhood ranging the forest with the boys. Of late she’d taken to wearing a ribbon in her hair. And now she was asking about the colour of the bridesmaid’s dress Frances would wear. Like Frances, Merlyn was growing up.
    Confused by conflicting emotions, Frances shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. Blue, I think.’ Blue was the first colour to come into her head, mainly because she’d glanced around her and Deacon was wearing a navy-blue pullover. ‘Not navy blue,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘I think sky blue.’
    â€˜I like pink best,’ said Merlyn. The answer was not surprising. The ribbon in her hair was pink.
    Frances didn’t know quite how to respond except to say that it most definitely wouldn’t be pink. ‘I don’t care what colour you like, Merlyn. I like blue best and my dress will be blue.’
    There were plenty of mushrooms growing, especially around a part of the forest frequented by deer.
    â€˜Deer’s poo! You can’t beat it for growing mushrooms,’ Deacon had declared.
    Frances gathered up enough mushrooms to fry in butter, perhaps with a few scraps of bacon added.
    Deacon was close by doing the same. The line of mushrooms she was following joined up with those he was picking. She could have gone in the other direction, there were plenty growing there too, but Deacon was like a magnet. She was drawn to him, but couldn’t as yet understand why.
    They ended up standing next to each other, out of earshot of the rest of them.
    â€˜You can have one of these.’
    He handed her one of the rabbits he and Ralphie had trapped earlier that day.
    â€˜I thought you only caught two today,’ she asked, thinking perhaps that she’d got it wrong, though she didn’t want it to be wrong. She wanted to be favoured by him. She wanted him to like her more than he liked Susan, the girl with the lisp and the pretty dresses.
    Deacon, undisputed leader of the local lads and heartthrob of every adolescent girl in school, turned a touching shade of pink.
    â€˜It’s a present, seeing as you’re off to this wedding by and by. And I’m leaving school before you. Got a job an’ all.’
    Frances let the rabbit dangle from her fingers and blushed just as brightly as Deacon. ‘I will be back you know.’
    He shrugged. ‘You might. You might not. Anyway, I’m starting my job at the quarry. I might not be around when you’re over here visiting.’
    â€˜I’ll find you.’
    â€˜Come elvering tonight?’
    â€˜Yes. I think so.’
    Ada Perkins looked at Frances searchingly when she asked about going elvering with young Deacon Fielding. She had recognised the besotted look in her young charge’s eyes. She’d seen the same in her daughter Gertrude’s eyes when she’d been in love. Seen the disappointment too when the man she loved had left her and she’d been forced to marry someone who had demanded her complete obedience. To Ada’s eternal sorrow, her daughter had buckled under his domineering ways. She had become as hard and as sanctimonious as he was. There had been no forgiveness in his religion.