Christmas Child: an absolutely heartbreaking and emotional Victorian romance by Carol Rivers (i wanna iguana read aloud .txt) 📗

hands, together with its sores and scabs and scratches, lay in the tender clutch of another’s. Comforting. Reassuring. Squeezes of affection from the ghosts of her childhood. Yes, the children had come to guide her!

In her hour of need, God had sent the orphans.

Chapter 70

The day before Christmas Eve

Ettie opened her eyes to a room she had never seen before. She could see a dresser, bearing a blue and white china bowl and a pitcher with a delicate, curled spout. Winter green holly, its spikes and proud red berries curved over a glass vase. A bright, square window was dappled with winter’s snow. Curtains … pretty flowered curtains much like the ones she remembered … but from where? And, a chair; a small wooden chair with a cushioned seat.

She was in a bed, soft and warm, with her body tucked beneath a coverlet. Her hands were at her sides, swathed in bandages. The door … ajar, as if someone might be listening outside. And then came a smell, warm and familiar, drifting in. A broth perhaps, wholesome and nourishing.

Ettie rolled her tongue across her dry lips. She watched the flakes of white dance on the window; building a snowy bridge across the sill …

A bridge?

A wooden one. Where the water beneath had flowed down to the great river.

A cough tickled at her throat. Her chest was tender, as though she had suffered a blow. She managed to move her legs and watched thankfully, as her toes lifted the coverlet, one bob, then two, then three and four.

The room came at last into proper focus; a clean and delightful room, as though someone had arranged it especially. Was she back at Chancery House? But no, it was impossible. This was not the attic. Memories cascaded back of the night she found Head waiting in her room. Of her accusations of thievery and her disgraced dismissal by Mr Gane and Mrs Powell.

Ettie touched the top of her nightdress; a white, soft linen with lacy frills. Who had dressed her in this? Why was she lying here in this comfortable bed, and not under the bridge, where she had expected to meet her fate?

A movement alerted her. She looked anxiously at the door. A face peered in, eyes wide and expectant. Terence crept forward, as though fearing to disturb her. He was dressed in a clean white apron with his cap stuck deep in the pocket. In his big hand he held a cup and saucer.

‘You’ve woken at last!’ he exclaimed, lowering the teacup to the bedside table. ‘I can’t believe it!’

‘Terence?’ Ettie muttered sleepily.

‘That’s me, your old pal.’ He inspected her keenly.

‘Where am I?’

‘In the safe care of yours truly, m’dear.’

Ettie tried to sit up. But her hands were too painful.

‘Let me help,’ Terence said, assisting her. ‘A joy it is to see you awake.’

Ettie smiled drowsily as she rested against the pillow. ‘I thought I’d gone to heaven or perhaps to hell.’

‘Good grief, no,’ Terence assured her as he pulled up the chair. ‘The pneumonia gave you those sinister visions.’ He lifted the cup to her lips and Ettie sipped. The tea was very welcome.

‘Three weeks you have lain here,’ the butcher explained. ‘It was Arthur who brought you here in his cart.’

‘Arthur, the gardener?’

‘Curled up under a bridge, you was. Soaked to the skin. Arthur's two little rascals found you. Imps he calls ‘em. Waifs and strays. Lets ‘em live in the grounds of the convent.’

‘Do they have dirty faces?’ Ettie enquired, remembering her visions.

‘Dirty ain’t the word. Stunk to high heaven an’ all. But it was them discovered you, all right.’

‘They held my hands,’ Ettie murmured. ‘They comforted me.’

Terence took a great breath. ‘My dear, my dear, where have you been all this while?’

Ettie forced her eyes to keep open. ‘The workhouse.’

‘The workhouse!’ Terence exclaimed in horror.

‘The governor sent me … sent me into service, where I was accused of … of thieving …’

‘How dare they!’ Terence demanded before she could summon the breath to explain. ‘What an outrage!’

‘Terence, don’t be upset.’

‘Sorry m’dear,’ he said contritely. ‘Here’s you, just back from the brink. And here’s me, in danger of sending you back there!’

Ettie smiled.

‘I came looking for you, you know,’ he said tenderly. ‘Me and Mrs Buckle. We travelled up to Oxford Street to the milliner’s. I remember you saying you was offered a job. But there’s a new owner. So I tried finding that young man of yours. Went up west to look for him and that damson-red carriage he was driving …’ He paused. ‘But I can see you’re tired now and I’ll save that story for another day.’

Ettie’s eyes began to close.

‘You are in Terence’s care now,’ Terence whispered. ‘Rest assured that not only will you get well, but you’ll be skipping around like a spring lamb very soon.’ He gently stroked the hair from her damp forehead. ‘Mrs Buckle will pay us a visit tonight. She kitted you out in that pretty nightdress, washed you like her own child. Put up them pretty curtains and tidied your room.’

A tear of gratitude slipped down Ettie’s cheeks. How would she ever be able to repay these kind people?

‘Close those little peepers now,’ urged Terence, tugging up the cover to her chin. ‘And sleep well.’

Very soon, as the snow fell in soft white pearls on the window pane she slipped back into a tranquil sleep. This time, no hellish illusions attacked her. Instead, she dreamt of meeting her mother outside the convent laundry. Arms linked, they walked joyfully under the trees and down the gentle slope to meet Sister Ukunda and Sister Patrick.

Chapter 71

Christmas Day

‘That’s it, dinner’s cooking!’ Terence clapped his hands in delight as they sat by the fire in the parlour at the back of the butcher shop. The cosy room was decorated with Christmas jugs of winter blooms and even a small green tree. The dwarf fir stood in a pot by the window, between the heavy brown drapes. Little sparkles