Nobody’s Girl Read online

  Clarrie pulled back from him, her chest expanding in an enormous sigh. ‘Yes, you’re right. I must look forward.’ Before I become consumed inside my own grief, she told herself sternly.

  ‘Then… shall I tell the agent we’re interested?’ Wig asked hesitantly.

  ‘No.’ Clarrie’s heart was suddenly swept along on an unexpected wave of happiness. A sudden relief from her misery. ‘Tell him, yes. We want to buy it.’

  Wig blinked his eyes wide. ‘Are you sure?’

  She answered him with a bewildered laugh. ‘I don’t know why, but, yes, I am. A new beginning. You were right. It’s exactly what I need.’

  Wig took her in his arms again, but this time he kissed her full on the mouth. Nana May turned away with a knowing smile dancing on her lips.

  *

  It was May the following year, 1920, when they moved in. Almost a year to the day since the tragedy that had blasted their world apart. But rather than leaving their little angel behind, Clarrie felt as if she was bringing her with them. As if she was going to be part of the new life they were making for themselves. Everything Clarrie did – turning the bedroom nearest to the master into a nursery, transporting the cot, the nursing chair, the toys – she was still doing for her lost firstborn. In her head, she spoke to her, showing her the wallpaper, the animal-patterned curtains, the view from the window, and telling her how one day she would be sharing it all with her little brothers and sisters.

  Nana May moved with them, of course, delighted that Clarissa had made such an improvement, the colour returning to her cheeks and flesh building on her bones again. Choosing the décor for each room seemed to have kept her mind from her sorrow during all those months of planning. Mr Yard, utterly devoted to the family he’d served for so long, had declared that nothing would stop him from moving to the country with them. Cook and one of the housemaids agreed to come until such time as Wig and Clarissa could employ staff locally, and until they could find new positions in London themselves. But the rest of the servants declined to accompany them on this journey into the unknown.

  And so it was that for the first few weeks until they acquired new staff, they all rolled up their sleeves and pitched in together. To Wig’s pleasure and relief, Clarrie appeared to thrive on it, a brightness in her eyes as she busied herself with new domestic skills and relishing the challenge since it kept her mind from more morose thoughts. But what Wig didn’t know was that each night, checking that no one was watching her, she opened the nursery door just a fraction and bid her little one goodnight.

  Four

  Home Farm – Kent

  October 1920

  ‘She’s absolutely beautiful. Perfect. Just like her mother.’

  Thomas Chandler perched on the edge of the bed, his soft gaze resting on his wife, who was propped up on the pillows holding their newborn child in her arms. In the jaundiced glow from the oil lamp, Esther looked exhausted from the ordeal of childbirth, but her face radiated with serenity. Just like an angel, Thomas considered. With the appalling memories of the trenches still raw in his mind, he felt he had suddenly been transported to heaven. Their humble tenant farmhouse, where life was a constant struggle to survive, had been transformed into a magical oasis. And all because of the little scrap of humanity sleeping in her mother’s arms.

  Esther stole her glance from her daughter’s face and smiled at her husband, who thought he detected a faint blush in her weary cheeks. ‘Oh, you!’ she chuckled, but could not keep her gaze from the baby for more than a moment. ‘What’ll we call her, d’you think?’ she asked dreamily, lowering her eyes to the tiny miracle once more. ‘All those ideas we had seem wrong now she’s here.’

  Thomas’s lips remained in a gentle curve as he contemplated the minuscule face with its button nose and tiny, rosebud mouth that twitched relentlessly even in sleep. A starfish hand had escaped from the shawl Esther had knitted with painstaking love. Dainty fingers. Nails like apple blossom petals.

  ‘She’s as pretty as a flower,’ Thomas whispered reverently. ‘So what about a flower name?’

  Esther looked up at him again. ‘As long as it’s not Daisy!’ she chided, suppressing a giggle. ‘She’s a lot prettier than that.’

  Thomas’s face fell for just a moment. ‘That’s just what I was thinking of, actually. I think daisies are quite pretty. Delicate. But what about Rose, then, if you don’t like Daisy? You can’t get anything more beautiful than a rose.’

  Esther nodded thoughtfully. ‘Rose,’ she repeated, then bent her head to address the unnamed infant as if the little soul understood every word. ‘Would you like to be called Rose?’ she asked adoringly. ‘Let me see. D’you look like a rose? Hmm, let me think… I know! If you like Daisy so much, Tom, why not Marguerite, the proper name for a daisy? That’d be a bit different. And Rose as a middle name.’

  Esther lifted her face to her husband, and Thomas felt his unmitigated love erupt like a fountain inside him. His wife. His child. His little family to care for and protect. If Esther had wanted to name their daughter Bill or Fred, at that moment he would have agreed.

  ‘Marguerite Rose it is then,’ he nodded, devotion gleaming in his eyes.

  They stayed a while in silence. Awed. Timeless. The autumn evening closing in around the small farmhouse. They heard a blackbird winging home. The muffled lowing of the cows in the barn.

  ‘I’m sorry it wasn’t a boy,’ Esther whispered wistfully, drawing Thomas from his mesmerised trance. ‘A boy would’ve been more use on the farm.’

  Thomas’s eyebrows shot up in astonishment. ‘The thought never entered my head,’ he told her truthfully. ‘And women can make just as good farmers as men. You kept the farm going while I was away in the war.’

  ‘Only just. It was terrible a struggle.’

  ‘But you did,’ Thomas insisted.

  ‘But I had a couple of girls from the village to help.’

  ‘There you are, then. And this little lady is going to be as good a farmer as any boy, too. I can feel it in my bones. Look!’ He dipped his head towards Marguerite Rose as she began to stir, her whimpers quickly gaining in volume. ‘She’s telling me it’s time I went out to milk the cows.’

  Esther laughed aloud now, and began to unbutton her nightdress. ‘Get away with you! She just needs a little feed.’

  ‘Will you be able to manage all right on your own?’

  ‘I’ve been getting calves and piglets to suckle from their mothers all my life,’ Esther chastised him with amusement. ‘So I’m sure I can manage with my own baby.’

  ‘But the midwife said—’

  ‘Blow what the midwife said. I know more about it than she does. Hardly has the marks of the cradle off her own behind, she has. Now, shoo! Those cows won’t wait forever.’

  ‘All right, then. I’ll be as quick as I can. I’ll just put some more coal on the fire before I go. You’ll need it nice and warm for changing Marguerite Rose’s nappy.’

  He crossed to the fireplace while Esther managed to ease her nipple into the infant’s open mouth. With a little encouragement, the baby began to suckle. Satisfied, Esther raised her head and Thomas heard her ask doubtfully, ‘Can we afford it? The extra coal, I mean?’

  ‘Of course,’ Thomas answered as he banked up the fire. ‘Things are tight, I admit. But we can manage well enough. There,’ he declared, straightening up. ‘By the time you’ve finished feeding her, that’ll be blazing away again.’

  He hesitated at the door to drink in the blissful scene a minute longer. Engrave it on his memory. His heart rose on a crest of elation as he finally dragged himself away and hurried down the creaking staircase of the old farmhouse. The sooner he got his tasks done, the sooner he could be back.

  Five

  March 1931

  ‘Meg, sweetheart, I need you to be a very strong, very brave girl for me.’

  Thomas Chandler turned from seeing the doctor out of the front door, his feet dragging as he made his way back into the farmhouse kitchen. His y
oung daughter looked up at him, her smooth skin wrinkling as a frown settled on her forehead. Her eyes grew huge as realisation dawned, and her long lashes swooped and soared in a slow, sad blink.

  ‘Has… Mummy lost another baby?’ she faltered in such a delicate, knowing tone that Thomas wondered how a ten-year-old child could be so wise. But then his darling little Meg had never ceased to amaze him since the day she’d been born.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid she has,’ he answered in a low sigh. ‘It wasn’t even really a baby this time. It was very early on.’

  Meg nodded slowly, her head bowed in sad acceptance. She knew all about babies and where they came from, Thomas reflected. It could hardly be otherwise, with her having been brought up on the farm, her endless questions never satisfied until she had an answer. After all, she’d been there often enough when the ram was put in with the ewes, and whenever they hired a neighbour’s prize bull to do the necessary for their small dairy herd.

  ‘Is that how you and Mummy made me?’ she’d asked casually as they’d leant over the gate watching the ram doing the business with the sheep in one of the fields.

  Thomas had swallowed hard. ‘More or less,’ he’d replied, since he knew Meg would want to know all the ins and outs if he tried to invent some other story. ‘Except that between humans, it’s something that happens out of a very deep love.’

  ‘Hmm.’ A half-smile had curved Meg’s mouth as she nodded thoughtfully. ‘You and Mummy love each other very much, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Thomas had agreed, relieved that his daughter had accepted his explanation with such trusting innocence. ‘And we love you very much, too, sweetheart.’

  Meg had flung her arms about her father’s waist then, and he’d ruffled her hair with such affection that she’d beamed up at him adoringly. She hadn’t asked any more questions, but it was soon after that she’d worked out that her mother’s swelling belly kept going flat again without any baby ever appearing. It was no use trying to hide it from her anymore.

  ‘Like a ewe slipping lamb,’ she’d said with a troubled twist of her lips the next time it had happened.

  There’d been a couple of pregnancies since, but neither of them had come to term. And now this.

  ‘Poor Mummy,’ Meg whispered, her voice choked for just a moment before her face brightened. ‘I’ll go and cheer her up.’

  ‘No, better not,’ Thomas told her gently. ‘Not for a while, at least. She’s very tired and the doctor gave her something to make her sleep.’

  ‘Oh, all right. I’ll do her a picture instead for when she wakes up.’

  ‘Yes, love, you do that. She always likes your pictures. And… we are sorry, love. We know you’d like a little brother or sister as much as we’d like another son or daughter. We love you so much, we just wanted another one like you to love as well.’

  ‘I know.’ Meg knotted her lips pensively. ‘But we’ve still got each other, and that’s enough.’

  Thomas drew in a breath. Was there another child of her age in the whole world so astute? Any other ten-year-old would have stomped about at being let down yet again, or been jealous that her parents longed for another baby in the first place. But not their Meg. She would be hurting, yes. But her first thoughts were for her mother and father’s pain, and how she could make it better for them.

  ‘Will you be all right, love, if I go and milk the cows?’ he asked his little jewel. ‘They’re a bit overdue as it is.’

  ‘Of course, Daddy.’ Meg deliberately shone her brightest smile at him. ‘I’ll come and do the hens and the pigs,’ she went on, sliding down from the table. ‘And I see Mummy must’ve made a casserole earlier while I was at school. I’ll put it back in the oven to heat through.’

  ‘You’re a good kid, you know.’ Thomas wrapped his arm about her shoulder as she stood up, and dropped a kiss on her hair.

  ‘Well, someone’s got to look after you while Mummy’s not well,’ the girl said in such a down-to-earth, old-fashioned tone that Thomas couldn’t help but laugh.

  Still chuckling and feeling his spirits lift a little, Thomas went with Meg as they both pulled on their wellies and old, working coats. As father and daughter stepped out into the dusk of the late March evening, the cool air gave no hint of the approaching spring.

  Thomas knew that Meg could be trusted to carry out perfectly the tasks she’d taken upon herself to attend to, and he left her to it while he went off to see to the milking.

  Meg herded up the hens in the farmyard and shooed them into the coop, counting them as she went. As often happened, she was one short. It had to be Livingstone, didn’t it? Meg tutted to herself as she hunted around for the adventurous bird that had well and truly lived up to her nickname on many an occasion. Meg eventually tracked her down behind the house and, cornering her between the wall and a low hedge, succeeded in picking her up.

  Tucked confidently under Meg’s arm, the hen sat quietly as the girl stroked her feathers and crooned to her as she crossed the farmyard on her way back to the coop. She released the errant fowl among its companions and checked there was sufficient food and water for the night. Then she locked the coop, and made sure all was secure. She wasn’t having any marauding fox making things even worse for her parents!

  Oh, poor Mummy and Daddy, she sighed again, pausing to let her breath quiver into the gathering gloom. So many of her classmates at school had little brothers and sisters. She ached with envy, but she had the farm and the animals as well as her loving parents, and she was so grateful for that. So, it was her job, wasn’t it, to help her mum and dad as much as possible? Make up for them not having a son to work on the farm. Besides, no son was going to be a better farmer than she was!

  Chin jutting, she saw to the pigs and then went back into the welcome warmth of the kitchen. She stoked up the range, adding more coal, and put the casserole into the oven. It was almost too heavy for her, but she was determined to do it. She wanted her parents to be proud of her. It might help to cheer them up.

  Now, then. She’d have liked to get on with the new book her teacher had privately lent her, called Swallows and Amazons, but that could wait until she went to bed. She must have a picture ready and waiting for when her mummy woke up. She took from the drawer the precious sketch pad, the one Father Christmas had left next to her stocking three months previously, together with some pencils and a little box of paints.

  Now, what would Mummy like best? What about a daffodil? There were a few coming into bud in the patch of garden at the other side of the house. Her daddy never had time to make it really nice, but there was a smattering of spring bulbs, and some old roses that bloomed with a wonderful scent in the summer. Some of the daffodils might be ready to pick in a few days’ time, but Meg wanted to give her mother a present now. And so she began to draw.

  The frill of the daffodil first, sketched ever so lightly in soft pencil in case she made a mistake. She didn’t. The trumpet next, overlapping the space she’d left on the edge of the frill to make the angle seem natural. You’d see the tips of the stamens, she thought with a frown, and then the other long things with the blobby bits on the ends. She couldn’t remember what they were called, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t stop her drawing them from memory. Then there’d be a short stalk protruding horizontally, which would bend at a sharp angle to form the long, slender stem, and she’d finish it off with two blade-like leaves.

  All was perfect first time round. She had no need to do any rubbing out.

  By the time Thomas came back in, the picture was finished, the delicate hues of yellow and green watercolour almost dry.

  Thomas shook his head in wonder. ‘My goodness, Meg, I don’t know how you do it.’

  ‘I just think in my head what things look like and then draw them,’ the child shrugged. ‘Oh, I’ve forgotten to sign it.’

  She picked up a pencil, a harder one this time, and wrote in a flourishing hand Marguerite Chandler in the bottom right-hand corner.

  ‘Well, you’l
l need to sign your name in full when you’re a famous artist,’ Thomas approved.

  ‘Oh, no, Daddy. I’m going to be a farmer when I grow up, not an artist. That’s just for fun, and you don’t make much money as an artist unless you get very famous. At least we make enough to live on from the farm. But d’you think Mummy’ll be awake yet?’ she went on impatiently. ‘I can’t wait to give this to her.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Thomas answered hesitantly. ‘But I’ll creep up and pop my head round the door just in case.’

  Thomas winked at his daughter as he went out into the hall and climbed the creaking staircase of the old house. His heart felt lighter, and all down to his little Meg. He knew his darling Esther would feel the same, too, when Meg gave her the picture. He could imagine the child sitting on the edge of the bed, chatting away to her mother, and a smile slowly lighting Esther’s pale face as it had done after each of their tragic losses. Dear Lord, they were so lucky to have their little Meg!

  *

  July 1931

  The blazing sunlight spangled on the silken surface of the lake, sparkling like a million diamonds and dazzling Clarissa’s vision as she lounged by the water’s edge. Mr Yard had carried a couple of deckchairs down from the summer house, and Clarrie was waiting patiently for Nana May to join her out in the glorious summer’s afternoon. There was no shade by the lake, and Clarrie liked it that way. On a day like this, she could feel the heat spearing through her, pinning down her thoughts, stopping them from wandering to painful places. But it didn’t always work, even twelve years on.

  The resident family of ducks was paddling about in a patch of reeds. Five ducklings, little balls of feathery fluff, were scrabbling with their webbed feet to keep up with their mother who glided majestically before them. Every now and then, she would pivot round effortlessly, checking they were keeping up, and seemingly unaware of the human watching them from the shore. Clarrie kept utterly still, not wanting to frighten them away.