Read Online Softly Grow the Poppies by Audrey Howard - Free Book Online

do as Dolly says.’
    Alice did as she was told, moving in a way that told them she was used to being obedient and if they had said, ‘Go and peel those potatoes,’ she would have done so though she had never peeled a potato in her life. She wore an old shawl that had seen better days and which had probably belonged to one of her father’s servants. She could not seem able to stop shivering and when she was seated Rose went to her and knelt at her feet.
    ‘I had nowhere else to go,’ Alice said simply, ‘but if you are unable to . . . I’ll understand.’
    ‘The workhouse, you mean.’
    Alice recoiled but Rose put her strong young arms about her and hugged her close. ‘You are a daft little thing,’ she told her lovingly. ‘Dolly and I will take care of you, won’t we, Dolly?’
    ‘Course we will, chuck. Now drink your tea and get thi’ warm. You’ve come to the right place, my lamb. Now let’s get you settled,’ calling to the three maids who were lurking in the doorway to the scullery, not wanting to miss what was happening. ‘Carrie, run up to the linen cupboard and bring down some blankets. They’re on the top shelf,’ as if Carrie, who had been making beds at Beechworth House for years, would not know that. ‘Now, Miss Alice, strip off by the fire and let’s get you warm. Nay, no one will come in,’ she said, as Tom retreated towards the door. ‘There’s only us women here’ she added. ‘Nay, my lass, don’t cry,’ putting a motherly arm about Alice.
    Between them they took Alice’s garments from her one by one, doing their best not to look at her jutting belly, which in contrast to her thinness seemed all the more swollen. She wore a pretty woollen dress in a soft rose pink which strained over the bulge of her pregnancy, and a corset which, presumably, had hidden her condition until now.
    The maids’ eyes were wide, not just with dismay, for the worst thing that could happen to a girl was to be with child without a husband, but with pity since Miss Alice was only a child herself. They had seen her now and again going by in her carriage and marvelled at her sweet face. And who on earth could have got her in this condition and then gone off, perhaps to war, and abandoned her? Alice was in such a stunned state she didn’t seem to mind her nakedness, forgetting the modesty with which she had been brought up, allowing them to wrap her in the warmed blankets then sitting obediently in the rocking-chair. She stared into the fire while the rest of them tiptoed round her, giving her time to recover a little, when she suddenly began to talk.
    ‘Charlie and I – before he went to France – we loved one another . . .’ She did not know how to word the rapturous lovemaking she and Charlie had shared. ‘We were going to be married – run away and be married since my father would not countenance it, then the war came and there was no time. He has written to me, through Harry.’
    The maids’ faces were a picture! Charlie and Harry! The Summers brothers! And here was poor little Miss Weatherly in the family way!
    ‘My maid wept; she had come into my bedroom unexpectedly and saw me. She screamed in her shock and my father came racing up, and some of the servants . . . I hadn’t had time to put my corsets on, you see. He shouted at me, called me names, awful names. My maid – she loves me – tried to stand up to him but he hit her, knocked her down as though it were her fault. He pushed me away when I tried to help her. “Get dressed,” he said, “and get out of my house.” Then he swore. I had no coat. He pushed me away again and I almost fell down the stairs – I might have lost the baby, Charlie’s child. He followed me, my father . . . The servants were horrified and tried to help me. Dear God, it was like a nightmare . . . my father, he’s . . . Gilly – she’s my maid – ran after me and put this shawl round me . . . she was crying . . . She’ll be