The Tulip Girl (12 page)

He put his arm about her waist and began to hum softly.

Nick’s shadow appeared in the cow-house doorway. ‘Your dad’s waiting for you by the tractor to help him cut Five Acre Field.’

Michael pulled a comical face and whispered, ‘Trust him to spoil our fun.’ Louder he said, ‘Right then. I’ll see you later, young’un, for your first dancing
lesson.’

As he left the crewyard, whistling, Nick sidled closer. ‘You don’t want to take any notice of him, y’know. He’s got a string of girls in the village.’

Maddie faced him. She didn’t want to fall out with Nick. It was bad enough having his mother forever sniping at her and finding every little fault with her whenever she could. She
didn’t need another enemy, but nor was she going to let him get away with trying to spoil everything.

‘Michael’s asked me to the village dance on Saturday night.’

‘Huh!’ Nick’s voice was scathing. ‘Well, he might take you, but once you’re there you’ll find yourself trampled in the rush. The girls are potty over
him.’

‘You jealous?’ The question was out of her mouth before she could stop it.

Nick’s mouth curled. ‘Of him? Nah, not likely. He’s heading for a fall, that one. Me Mam says he’ll bring trouble to us all. She doesn’t believe in all that
nonsense, you know, that fortune telling at the fair a while back, but she did say she thought the gypsy had got it right about Michael.’

Maddie stared at him. ‘Maybe,’ she said thoughtfully, remembering what the dark-eyed Romany woman had said about them all and about Nick and his mother in particular. ‘Maybe
she got a lot more things right than we know.’

‘Oh aye. You reckon you’re going to end up a millionaire then, do you? Everything you touch will turn to gold. Is that it?’

Maddie turned away. ‘I’ve work to do in the Dairy. I’d better get on with it. The only thing I’m going to turn into gold is the cream into butter.’

Suddenly, Nick smiled and Maddie noticed how swiftly he swung from one mood to another. He was so much nicer when he smiled and his pale grey eyes, huge behind his glasses, wrinkled with
laughter. ‘Well, if you look at it that way, I suppose she could have been right.’

Now Maddie laughed. ‘It’s the only way to look at it. I can’t imagine me, a waif and stray with no real family and no proper name, ever coming into a fortune of real gold, now
can you?’

The promised dancing lesson did not happen that night.

The tractor, old and temperamental, took twice as long to cut the corn in Five Acre Field.

‘I reckon that tractor’s about had its day. I’ll have to think about getting another before harvest next year,’ Frank said when he and Michael returned home after ten in
the evening, looking exhausted.

When Harriet decreed, ‘Supper and bed for the pair of you,’ neither of them had the strength left to argue.

As he passed Maddie’s chair on his way upstairs, Michael put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, young’un. Maybe tomorrow night, eh?’

But the next night was the same; too late and too tired.

‘I told you so,’ Nick said. ‘Makes all sorts of promises he’s no intention of keeping.’

Maddie shot Nick a vitriolic glance, but said nothing.

On Friday night, Michael came into the kitchen where Maddie was standing at the sink washing up the supper dishes.

‘Come into the front room when you’ve finished. We’d better have that dancing lesson.’

Maddie hurried through the rest of her work and was soon scurrying through to the front room.

‘Are we allowed in here?’ she asked peering round the door. ‘Mrs Trowbridge is looking daggers already.’

Michael had pushed back the huge leather settee and the armchairs from the centre of the room.

‘Never mind Mrs T.’ He wound up the gramophone and placed a record on the turntable. ‘What are you standing there for? Come on in.’ He paused whilst he bent over the
gramophone, lifted up the head and gently placed the needle on the edge of the record. As the strains of ‘In the Mood’ filled the room, Michael straightened up and held out his arms to
her. Maddie moved towards him and felt his arm go around her waist and his left hand take hold of her right. Her legs felt weak with love for him.

Though holding her, he stood a little apart from her, teaching her the steps. Their heads were close together as they both looked down at their feet.

‘Don’t worry too much,’ he told her. ‘Just get the feel of the music. The rhythm. Like this, see?’ He swayed in time to the beat of the music and, watching his
feet, Maddie copied him.

‘That’s great!’ he said. ‘I reckon you’re a natural.’

They heard the door open and glanced up to see Nick watching them, hands thrust deep into his pockets as usual.

‘Want to join the dancing class?’ Michael shouted above the music.

For a moment there was a look of longing on the younger boy’s face, rather like a child outside a sweet-shop window with his nose pressed to the pane but with no money in his pocket to buy
anything. ‘Mam ses it’s time Maddie was in bed.’

The music slowed to a growl as the gramophone wound down and Michael let go of Maddie and hurried across to turn the handle vigorously.

‘Go on.’ Looking at Nick, Michael nodded his head towards Maddie. ‘You two have a dance. You can come with us tomorrow night, Nick, if you like.’

Maddie opened her mouth to say, Oh no, I just want it to be the two of us, Michael, when she saw the pleasure leap into Nick’s eyes. Suddenly, she felt an affinity with the boy. She knew
what it was to be the odd one out. The one outside always looking in. Mistakenly, she had thought he couldn’t possibly be lonely, not living here. He was part of a family; he had a proper
home. But now she saw that with a joyless mother, living in a house that was not theirs and with the handsome, ever-cheerful Michael who was like a brother, but not a brother, Nick was perhaps even
more lost and lonely than she had been. At least she had always known exactly what she was. He was like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle that belonged to the picture, but somehow just didn’t quite
fit.

So Maddie smiled and beckoned him towards the middle of the room. ‘Come on, then. If we dance, Michael can watch and tell us what we’re doing wrong.’

Half an hour later, the three of them were helpless with laughter, dancing round in a circle, their arms entwined across each other’s shoulders like Russian dancers. They didn’t hear
the door open again until Harriet’s strident voice made them all jump and spring guiltily apart.

‘Nicholas! What on earth do you think you are doing? Get to bed at once. And as for you, girl, you can pack your bags and leave. Right now.’

Maddie blanched at the threat, but stood her ground. ‘You can’t sack me. Only Mr Frank can do that.’

The woman stepped closer to her. ‘I hired you. I can fire you.’

Maddie bit her lip. The first bit was true, so maybe she could.

‘Now, now, Mrs T,’ Michael began, moving towards her and attempting to put his arm around the housekeeper’s shoulders. But she shrugged him off.

‘Don’t you “Mrs T” me. You and your flannel. You might think you can charm all the village girls and this one here too. But it dun’t work on me.’

‘But I take the blame, Mrs T. It was all my fault. I’m taking Maddie to the dance tomorrow night and she can’t . . .’

‘Oh no, you’re not. You’re most certainly not.’

Michael sighed and glanced towards Maddie. ‘You’d better go to bed, young’un. We’ll talk about it in the morning.’

‘In the morning,’ Harriet declared as she turned and marched out of the room, ‘she’ll be gone.’

Maddie hardly slept. She was torn between memories of being in Michael’s arms and the final threat from Mrs Trowbridge hanging over her.

Could Michael really like her? she asked the darkness. She knew she had changed since she had first come to Few Farm. Good food and fresh air had made her grow and fill out in all the right
places. Lying in her narrow bed, she ran her hands down her body, feeling the soft mound of her breasts, the tautness of her stomach and the growing pubic hair. She wished it were Michael’s
hands caressing her and at the mere thought a thrill of excitement gripped her, tingled in her groin.

She gave a groan as she turned on her side and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. By the morning, she might well be gone from the farm. Maybe she would never see Michael again.

‘She’s going nowhere, Harriet. And if you’ll take my advice, you’ll let the three of them go to the village dance tonight. What harm can it do, for
Heaven’s sake? They’re young. They all work hard. These two lads – aye, your Nick as well – do men’s work. At the end of the week, they deserve a bit of fun. And the
lass does too. Heaven knows, she must have had precious little of it in her life so far.’

The quarrel was going on right in front of her as Maddie stood waiting for her fate to be decided. There was no escape. She couldn’t turn and leave the room. She was forced to stand there,
listening to it all. And yet they seemed to have forgotten her presence.

‘Fun? Fun, you say? Life’s not meant to be fun. When have I ever had any fun?’

‘Harriet,’ Frank’s tone was softer, ‘you must have been in love once. When you married . . .’

Harriet’s face was purple and to Maddie’s horror, she actually shook her fist in Frank’s face. ‘Don’t you even speak his name in my hearing. Not after what he did
to me.’

‘My dear, you’re letting the bitterness eat you up. And it’s destroying Nick’s life too. You can’t keep him locked up here with you for ever.’

‘He’s got
his
blood in his veins. Bad blood. I’ve got to save him from himself.’

‘He’s a boy. Just a boy. Let him go with them tonight, eh?’

Harriet turned away. ‘You do what you like with your own son, Mr Frank, and with the girl. I wash my hands of her. If she brings trouble to your door, don’t look to me for help. As
for Nicholas, he’s my son and he’ll do as I say.’

She marched from the room and they heard her banging pans onto the stove in the kitchen. Frank turned to Maddie. ‘Run along, lass, and help with the milking. I’ll be out in a
minute.’

‘Yes, Mr Frank.’ She turned and scuttled through the kitchen and the wash-house and out of the back door. She was not to be sent away. She could stay here – with Michael. But
her relationship with Mrs Trowbridge was getting worse by the minute.

She was subdued the rest of the day, concentrating on not doing anything silly, working hard and anxious not to make any mistakes.

It was strange now, she thought, trying to understand her own feelings. She had never cared before about trying to please anyone. At the Home, she had invariably been in bother and had, quite
justly her honest nature reminded her, deserved the title of troublemaker. Whatever dire punishment had been threatened and usually inflicted upon her had never deterred her. Madeleine March had
gone her own way to the despair of Mrs Potter and the admiration of her peers.

But now she felt vulnerable. Now she didn’t want to be sent away from Few Farm in disgrace. She wanted to stay here, close to Michael, and it was her feelings for him, she realized, that
made her defenceless. Loving someone made you weak, she thought. Perhaps that was what it was like to be part of a family. You behaved yourself because you didn’t want to hurt or upset those
you loved. You didn’t want to give them cause to be angry with you because you would then be hurt in turn by their anger.

Maddie sighed. It was all very complicated. Having feelings made life complicated. It had been much easier at the Home where no one had cared for her and she hadn’t cared for anyone, she
thought. Except little Jenny, of course.

Less complicated it might have been, she thought, as she caught sight of Michael drawing the milk cart into the yard, but she wouldn’t go back to the Home in a million years. And as he saw
her, waved, jumped down from the cart and came towards her with long, loping strides, her heart gave a lurch.

Not even for a million pounds, would she go back.

‘If I had my way, girl, you’d be back to that orphanage before your feet could touch the ground.’

For one unguarded moment, Maddie was rash enough to answer back. ‘Well, it ain’t up to you, is it? Mr Frank’s the boss around here. Not you.’

‘Why you . . .’

They were standing in the bathroom, open to the landing, where Maddie had been washing her hair in the washbasin there in readiness for her night out with Michael. Now she stood, rubbing it dry
with a towel. Soon, the soft shining blonde hair framed her face and her blue eyes met Harriet’s resentful expression squarely.

The woman was staring at her and now it was not with rage, but something else. Some sort of emotion that Maddie could not put a name to.

‘What’s the matter?’ Maddie asked.

The woman jumped, startled out of her own reverie. ‘Eh? What? Oh – er . . .’ Then she seemed to recover herself and she stepped closer and thrust her face close to
Maddie’s. ‘Bad blood. You’ve bad blood in you, girl, that’s what. I can see it in you by just looking at you.’

She turned away and Maddie heard the door of the housekeeper’s bedroom slam.

Maddie blinked and shook her head. ‘Funny woman,’ she muttered. ‘Seems obsessed with “bad blood” in everybody.’ She had even said it of her own son.

Suddenly, for all his moody ways, Maddie felt acutely sorry for young Nick Trowbridge.

They heard the music and laughter from the village hall even before they reached it. Maddie clung to Michael’s arm, suddenly unaccountably nervous.

‘I don’t know if I dare go in.’

Michael strained to see her through the darkness. ‘Not scared, young’un, are you? Not you, surely?’

‘Well, I am a bit. You won’t leave me and go off with other girls, will you? I expect there’ll be some here who knew me at school.’ She pulled a wry face. ‘The
village girls never liked us. Some of their parents didn’t like them mixing with the likes of us from the Home.’

Michael’s face was a study. ‘You’re kidding me.’

Maddie pursed her mouth. ‘I only wish I was.’

‘Well then,’ he tucked her hand firmly into his arm, ‘tonight, we’ll show ’em. You just stick with me.’