The Tulip Girl (23 page)

‘Harriet, no one is going to be thrown out. My son is as much to blame as Maddie.’

‘Oh no. No, no, no,’ Harriet screamed at him. ‘I won’t have you blaming Michael. He’s not to blame. It’s her. She led him on. It could be anybody’s. Any
one of the village lads. She’s always running to the village to see that Jenny. How do we know what she gets up to when she’s away from here?’

Very slowly and deliberately, Frank said, ‘Maddie stays here.’ There was a moment’s silence in the room before he added with a heavy sadness, ‘It is Michael who must go
away.’

Now it was Maddie who cried, ‘No, oh no.’

Frank came towards her and though he didn’t touch her and his eyes were shadowed with sorrow, there was understanding in his tone. ‘Look, it’d be better if he went away. At
least, for a while.’

‘See how you’ve broken up this family.’ Harriet’s spiteful tone would not be silenced.

For the first time in her life, Maddie’s resolve crumbled. Tears poured down her cheeks and she flung herself against Frank, begging, pleading hysterically. ‘Please, oh please, Mr
Frank, don’t send him away. I’d sooner you sent me away. Not Michael.’

‘Let her live in the woods,’ Harriet said. ‘That’s where her sort belong.’

Frank turned and glared at her. ‘If you don’t shut up, Harriet, it will be you leaving this house.’ The woman stared back, but, for the moment, she said no more.

Frank stroked Maddie’s hair. ‘There, there, love. Don’t get so upset. It’s not good for the child. You must think of the bairn, now, you know. After all . . .’
Gently he released her limpet hold on him and looked down into her face. ‘It is my grandchild.’

Fresh tears welled and she buried her face against him. ‘Oh Mr Frank, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

The argument wrangled on for several days. Michael did not want to go.

‘I don’t want to leave you, Maddie. Dad’s right. It is my fault just as much as yours. You’ll be sixteen very soon. In March. I can’t understand why we can’t
get married then.’

Bending over the tray of budding tulips, she asked in a small voice, ‘Do you really want to marry me, Michael, or are you just saying it now because – because of . . .?’

Standing beside her in the warm greenhouse, he answered quickly, ‘Of course I want to marry you. It’s just a bit sooner than we’d thought, isn’t it? That’s
all.’

They’d never talked of marriage before, so even though she wanted to believe him with all her heart, Maddie couldn’t quite believe, deep inside her, that he wasn’t just saying
it now because of the coming child. What was the phrase – a shotgun wedding? Well, no one was holding a shotgun to Michael’s head. He had no need to marry her.

They worked on in silence. ‘I think,’ Maddie said. ‘Your dad’s worried that with me having no family, the authorities might start asking too many questions, about my age
and that.’

‘I just don’t know how you’re going to manage all the work, if I do go away like Dad suggests, that’s all.’

‘I know.’

The silence between them grew longer. There was nothing left to say – it had all been said – and there seemed no way round the problem.

Michael straightened up and eased his back. ‘You go into the house, Maddie. You look so tired and there are dark shadows under your eyes. I don’t like to see you looking like
that.’

‘But . . .’

‘No “buts”,’ he said firmly. He stepped in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. He looked down into her upturned face. ‘Oh Tulip, I wouldn’t have
hurt you for the world, but I think it would be best if I did go.’

‘No, please, Michael. Please don’t leave me.’ She clung to him again, desperately, not caring now who saw them.

Gently he disentangled himself from her clinging arms, but held her hands between his own. ‘I must. But I will come back. I promise you faithfully, I will come back.’

Tears blurred her vision as she pulled away from him and stumbled blindly out of the greenhouse, quite forgetting in her misery to open and close the door carefully so that she did not cause a
sudden rush of cold air, uncaring, for once, about her precious flowers.

She did not go into the house. She could not face Frank’s worried expression nor the glee in Harriet’s eyes. Instead she went out of the gate, into the lane and turned towards the
village, but halfway along she took the fork in the road that led to the woods belonging to Mayfield Park. She met no one and was thankful. Sobbing, she ran on and on until she came to the edge of
the trees. Gasping for breath she leant against a trunk for a moment but then plunged into the leafy shadows. Mindless of the briars scratching her legs and tearing at her clothes, she crashed her
way through the undergrowth until she came to the clearing.

The bed of tulips that grew year after year without, so far as Maddie knew, any tending showed nothing now of the colourful display that would be there in three months’ time. Now the
ground was cold and hard and bare.

Maddie flung herself down where the golden flowers would bloom, digging her fingers into the ground. She rested her head on her arm and cried until exhaustion overtook her.

She didn’t see a figure amongst the trees, who stood uncertainly, watching her weep.

‘But where can she be?’

‘I thought she’d come into the house. She was looking so tired,’ Michael, facing his father, spread his hands. ‘I told her to come in and I’d finish off in the
greenhouse.’

‘What time was that?’

‘Just after two.’

Frank turned to Harriet. ‘Did she come in?’

The woman shrugged. ‘Not that I saw.’

‘Nick? Have you seen her?’

‘No, Mr Frank. And I’ve looked all round the outhouses. Even . . .’ He cast a sly look towards Michael. ‘Even the hay shed.’

‘She might have gone to see Jenny, Dad,’ Michael suggested.

‘That’s a thought. I’ll go . . .’

‘No, I’ll go. I can be there in five minutes on my bike.’

Half an hour later Michael returned with a breathless Jenny, who had run all the way alongside him.

‘What’s wrong?’ Her eyes were wide and fearful.

‘Hasn’t she told you?’ Harriet feigned surprise. ‘I thought you’d have been the first to know. I thought you were like sisters.’

‘Told me what?’ Poor Jenny’s glance was going from one to the other, her voice frantic now. ‘Tell me? What’s happened to her?’

Harriet bent and thrust her face close to the girl’s. ‘She’s got herself pregnant, that’s what.’

The words were said harshly, without a vestige of feeling or understanding and the woman smiled maliciously as Jenny’s open mouth formed a horrified, ‘Oh no.’ But at least
Jenny didn’t need to ask who was the father of Maddie’s child, for her glance went straight to Michael.

Frank’s deep voice intervened. ‘Do you know where she might have gone, love?’

‘She was very upset when she left me,’ Michael said. ‘I – I’d just told her that I thought it best if I did go away for a while . . .’ His voice trailed
away.

‘We thought she might have come to you?’ Frank went on, but as Jenny shook her head, he asked, ‘Do you think she would go back to the Home?’

Now the shake of her head was vehement. ‘She rather die than go back there . . .’ And then realizing what she’d said, the girl clapped her hand over her mouth with a little
squeak and tears filled her eyes.

Frank put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Don’t worry, love. We’ll find her.’

Maddie roused to the sound of soft and gentle singing, like the crooning of a lullaby. She blinked, rubbed her eyes and sat up and then she blinked again, this time in
surprise. Sitting on the opposite side of the tulip bed was a woman. A pretty woman with long, curling fair hair. She wasn’t looking at Maddie but at the ground, her fingers gently pull out a
stray dead weed and then patting the earth as if she were willing the blooms to sprout up under her touch. Maddie held her breath, not wanting to break the spell of the pale winter sunlight shining
through the trees on to the woman’s hair, casting a golden halo around her head. She looked up and Maddie stared straight into her blue eyes. Slowly, Maddie let out her breath, yet, still,
she dare not speak even though the singing had now faded away. The woman’s eyes were looking at her and yet they didn’t really seem to be seeing her. There was a vacant look in them.
No, Maddie decided, that wasn’t quite fair. It was more a dreamy expression, as if the woman were lost in a world of her own; an imaginary world that, to her, was far more real than life
around her.

Softly, hesitantly, for she had the feeling that the stranger would shy away like a frightened doe if alarmed, Maddie said, ‘Hello.’

The woman stared at her and now her eyes seemed to focus properly on Maddie’s face. She smiled but did not answer and then she bent her head again, her gaze once more upon the ground.

Suddenly, Maddie realized who this woman was. She had seen her once before. Only the once, peering out the rear window of a motor car as it passed them by in the market place. This was Amelia
Mayfield.

‘They are beautiful, aren’t they, in the spring?’ Maddie said gently. ‘Did you plant them?’

The vacant look was back as Amelia’s shoulders lifted fractionally. A light breeze rustled through the trees and the sunlight faded. Maddie shivered, but the woman seemed impervious to the
sudden change. Softly, deep in her throat the crooning began again.

Maddie was fascinated by her and although she knew she ought to be getting back to the farm, somehow she could not bring herself to rise and walk away from Amelia.

She looked, Maddie thought, to be in her mid-thirties and yet her manner and actions were those of a child. An innocent, lost child. Poor Amelia. So it was true what they said about her, that
her tragic love affair had affected her mind and that she was kept hidden away in Mayfield Park for her own protection.

Should she be out here, then, Maddie wondered, alone in the woods? Was she allowed out this far alone? She was still debating what she should do when she heard a voice calling and the sound of
someone crashing their way through the undergrowth.

‘Amelia? Are you there, dear? Amelia? It’s Theo. Don’t be afraid. It’s only Theo.’

Maddie watched as Amelia took not a scrap of notice. It was as if she didn’t even hear her brother calling. She just carried on singing and smiling to herself.

Without making a sudden movement that might startle her, Maddie stood up and tiptoed to the edge of the clearing.

‘Mr Theo,’ she called. ‘We’re here.’

For a moment the sounds of movement through the trees ceased and then, beginning again, came towards her.

‘Miss March!’ He said, catching sight of her but immediately his concerned glance went beyond her to his sister sitting on the ground. At the sight of her, Maddie saw him relax
visibly. Then his glance came back to her and she saw him frown as he took in her dishevelled appearance and her tear-stained face.

‘Miss March, are you all right? Is there – anything I can do?’

Maddie summoned a brave smile. ‘Thank you, Mr Theo, but I’ll be fine now. I – I must be going, but . . .’ She glanced back over her shoulder towards Amelia. ‘I
didn’t like to leave her here alone.’

‘Thank you.’ So briefly, that later she was to wonder if she had imagined it, he reached out and touched her hand.

‘I – must go.’ She turned away from him but at the edge of the clearing she paused and looked back towards the woman still sitting on the grass. Then her glance took in the
tree where the desperate young man had taken his own life. Love made you weak and vulnerable, Maddie thought. She had never shed so many tears in her life as she had during these past few days.
Strangely, though she could not have explained why, she felt stronger now. Perhaps it was seeing the poor, lost creature, still mourning her beloved, that made Maddie, in that moment, determined to
face whatever blows life inflicted upon her. Never, never, she vowed, would she allow anyone to have such power over her that she ended up like Amelia Mayfield.

‘They’re all out looking for you,’ was Harriet’s greeting. ‘Running around like headless chickens over a little trollop like you that don’t
deserve it. But there, that’s men’s stupidity for you.’

With a quiet dignity, Maddie said, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve caused anyone concern.’

‘Oh, you’ve caused concern, all right. You’d have done us all a favour if you had taken yourself off and never come back.’

Maddie returned the woman’s look. ‘Perhaps you’re right, Mrs Trowbridge. Perhaps that’s exactly what I should do, because if Michael does go – as he says he will
– life’s not going to be worth living in this house. Not for me. Is it? You’ll see to that, I’ve no doubt.’

She turned and went out of the back door again and walked to the gate. She saw Frank and Michael walking down the lane towards her and she waved. As they neared her she said, ‘I’m
sorry to have worried you, Mr Frank.’

He gave her a curt nod and said, ‘Well, as long as you’re all right. But don’t do it again.’ Without another word he went through the gate, across the yard and into the
house.

Maddie’s troubled eyes followed him. ‘He’s angry with me, isn’t he?’

Michael put his arm about her shoulders and sighed. ‘You had us worried, Maddie. Where were you?’

‘I . . .’ She hesitated, not wanting to tell him where she had been. He might read more into her actions than even she had meant. ‘I went for a walk that’s all. I needed
to be on my own. To think. Michael . . .’ She twisted to face him. ‘It would be better if I went away. Right away. There’s places for people like me.’

He touched her cheek with the tip of his finger, trying to brush away the dried salt of her tears. ‘You’ve spent all your life in an institution. I won’t let you go back into
one. It’s my fault as much as yours. More, really.’ He put his arms around her and held her close. ‘We’ll work it out, Maddie. But you must be brave if the best thing is for
me to go away . . .’ His hold tightened, hugging her to him. ‘Just for a while. Just until after your birthday. Then I’ll come back and we can be married.’

‘Are you really sure you want to? You’re not just saying it?’