Anne Bennett 3-Book Collection: A Sister’s Promise, A Daughter’s Secret, A Mother’s Spirit. Anne Bennett
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СКАЧАТЬ dear girl, you cannot arrive in Birmingham with just two dresses,’ Nellie said, drawing Molly into their living quarters as she spoke. ‘You are smaller than Cathy, so you can have her old things. Don’t worry, I have discussed it with her and she is in agreement. I have bought you some pretty underwear as well and a couple of brassieres, though I had to guess your size.’

      ‘Nellie, you mustn’t do this.’

      ‘My dear girl, all the years you have been coming to our house I have never bought you a thing,’ Nellie said. ‘Not even on your birthday and at Christmas. I have felt bad about it too, at times, though it has been deliberate, because I didn’t want to make things worse for you at the house and I was pretty certain anyway you wouldn’t be allowed to accept things from us.’

      ‘I wouldn’t,’ Molly said. ‘I know I wouldn’t. In fact, she would probably take them from me at the door and throw them straight into the fire.’

      ‘I thought as much.’

      ‘But you don’t have to buy me anything,’ Molly said, ‘though I am incredibly grateful.’

      ‘Listen to me, child dear,’ Nellie said. ‘You are going to a country in the grip of war and you do not know what you will find, or where you will lay your head tonight or maybe many nights yet to come. You may have great need of clothes. Now, about those hobnailed boots …’

      ‘I’m not taking them,’ Molly said. ‘I know that much. Whatever the weather I am wearing these shoes that Uncle Tom forced his mother to buy for me.’ Molly well remembered the row when, as springtime really set in, Tom had declared that Molly had to have shoes for Mass and that his mother couldn’t expect the child to go along in hobnailed boots any more.

      ‘You are not shaming Molly, Mammy, but yourself,’ Tom had cried. ‘And if you refuse to have her decently shod, then I will shame you further and take her to Buncrana and buy her some shoes myself and let it be known why I am having to do it.’

      And so Biddy was forced to buy her shoes, but they were summer-weight sandal-type shoes.

      Now Nellie said, ‘Take them with you by all means but you really need to travel in boots. ‘What good timing that Cathy grew out of her boots only a couple of weeks ago. Your feet are so slender I know they will fit you.’

      ‘Nellie, I …’

      ‘All you need now is a nice case to put it all in,’ Nellie said. ‘And I have a lovely smart one that you can have a loan of.’

      ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Molly said. ‘Thank you seems so inadequate.’

      ‘It’s a pleasure, my dear girl,’ Nellie said. ‘I will worry about you every minute you are away, and though you have a fair bit of money, you will in all probability have to pay for lodgings. At least if you take plenty of clothes it will be one expense spared.’

      ‘Nellie, you are so kind and generous,’ Molly said. She felt her eyes well up with tears. ‘I will miss you so much –’ she said brokenly – ‘miss all of you – and I am so very grateful for everything you have done for me. Thank you so very, very much.’

      Cathy and Nellie were crying as much as Molly as they embraced. When Jack took her in his arms too and said, ‘Look after yourself, bonny lass,’ Molly felt such despondency her heart was like a solid lump inside her.

       FIFTEEN

      ‘Now are you sure you have everything?’ Tom whispered to Molly as she made ready to leave.

      ‘Everything,’ Molly said. ‘And there is no need for you to go with me.’

      ‘There is, and I would prefer it,’ Tom said, helping Molly through the window and following after her. ‘Anyway, I want to talk to you.’

      ‘Oh?’

      ‘Aye,’ Tom said. ‘Put your bag on your other shoulder and I will have your case, and we will walk arm in arm because it will be warmer, and I will tell you all about Aggie.’

      ‘Who’s Aggie?’ Molly said, glad enough to cuddle into Tom as they walked together through the raw, wintry night.

      ‘She was the eldest of the family.’

      Molly wrinkled her brow. ‘Mom never mentioned a sister. In fact,’ she said surprised, ‘no one mentioned another girl. Did she die?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ Tom said. ‘I really don’t know what happened to her. She ran away from home when she was fifteen.’

      Molly stopped dead and stared at her uncle. ‘Seriously?’ she asked. ‘She actually ran away from home?’

      ‘Yes,’ Tom said. ‘Your mother was only a year old at the time, and as we were forbidden to mention her name ever after it, she never even knew about her. That’s why, when your mother sent that letter to Mammy, it was probably like a double betrayal. Two daughters gone to the bad, as it were – not that that excuses her behaviour in any way.’

      ‘Did Aggie want to marry a Protestant too then?’

      ‘No,’ Tom said. ‘As far as I am aware she didn’t want to marry anyone.’

      ‘But … Uncle Tom, she was little more than a child,’ Molly said. ‘Where did she go and why?’

      Tom shrugged his shoulders. ‘If she ever sent a letter to give any sort of explanation then I never saw it, or was told of it,’ he said.

      ‘Now,’ Molly commented, ‘why doesn’t that surprise me? But …’

      ‘Come on,’ Tom said. ‘We must walk before we stick to the ground altogether and it would never do for you to miss your train.’

      Molly saw the sense of that, but her head was still teeming with questions about the unknown Aggie she had just found out about. She wondered why her grandmother hadn’t made enquiries of her whereabouts, get the Gardaí involved as Nellie had thought Biddy might if Molly had tried to leave before she was eighteen.

      ‘Did Aggie’s life with her mother just get that difficult?’

      ‘You could say that,’ Tom said gently. ‘Poor Aggie. As the eldest she had no childhood at all and was run off her feet in much the same way you were. Look,’ he went on, ‘though I can tell you nothing of what befell Aggie after she left here, and I was then only thirteen and not in a position to help her at all, that’s why I wanted it to be different for you.’

      ‘There is no comparison,’ Molly said. ‘I have a good case full of nice clothes and a money belt full of cash, even food for the journey, and that fine torch and a rake of extra batteries, as it will be dark by the time I reach Birmingham. Every eventuality is catered for and, look, I can see the lights of the station from here. You need come no further.’

      But for all Molly’s brave words, Tom heard the quiver in her voice and knew she was perilously near to tears. For the first time, he put his arms around her and held her tight.

      ‘Don’t СКАЧАТЬ