A Mother’s Spirit. Anne Bennett

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ knew if he didn’t stop the pony before the road, it was highly unlikely any of them would survive.

      However, though his mouth was dry with fear, he kept the panic out of his voice and hands as he continued to stroke and talk as gently as he could. Gradually, he felt the pony begin to respond and to slow slightly. Then people came forward to hold him. He was eventually brought to a halt only a couple of yards from the road. He stood with his head down, his sides heaving and gleaming with sweat. Joe slid from his back, ran to the carriage door and opened it.

      Gloria was lying curled in a ball on the floor of the carriage, certain she was going to die. She had begun to uncurl herself stiffly as the carriage stopped, though she still shook.

      Joe climbed inside the carriage and lifted the child gently to her feet. Her bonnet had become dislodged and her hair was tousled around her head, and although her face was brick red, it didn’t detract from her beauty at all.

      ‘Are you all right, miss?’ Joe asked solicitously.

      Gloria opened her mouth to speak, and began to weep in fear and relief. She put her arms around Joe’s neck, and he didn’t protest, knowing that she probably needed the comfort of another human being. She cried into his shoulder as he lifted her in his arms and carried her from the carriage.

      They were still clasped together like this when Brian reached them, red-faced and panting. From every side people told him of the bravery of the young man, newly arrived in the country, who, without a shadow of a doubt, had saved the life of young Gloria Brannigan.

      Brian knew that without being told. He had died a thousand times as he pounded after the careering carriage, and even as he watched the young man from the immigrant ship leap on to the back of the terrified pony, he feared he would not be able to stop the pony in time.

      He peeled his still distraught daughter from Joe’s arms as he said to him, ‘I owe you a debt that it will take a lifetime to repay. Brian Brannigan is my name, and this is my daughter, Gloria.’

      ‘Joe Sullivan, sir,’ Joe said. ‘And as for what I did, I am just glad that your daughter is unharmed.’

      ‘Thanks to you,’ Brian said, looking Joe up and down. He liked what he saw. Joe was a handsome man, with expressive dark eyes. He stood straight and tall, and looked fully in command of himself, and only his tousled brown hair and his rumpled suit were evidence of his act of bravery. ‘None but my coachman, Tim Walsh, tried to stop the pony,’ Brian went on, ‘and now the poor man is lying comatose on the ground awaiting an ambulance. Everyone else kept out of the way.’

      ‘You can’t blame them, sir,’ Joe said. ‘I would say the pony was too panicked to stop in any way other than the one I tried, and even I wasn’t sure that it would work.’

      Gloria was looking at Joe with a sort of awed expression. ‘What did you do?’ she asked.

      ‘Leaped on the pony’s back, that’s what,’ Brian told his daughter. ‘And in doing so saved your life and risked his own.’

      ‘I … I don’t know what to say,’ Gloria said. ‘Thank you, I suppose, but that doesn’t seem very much really.’

      ‘It isn’t,’ Brian agreed, ‘but here is a better offer.’ He turned to Joe. ‘You have just come off the immigrant ship?’

      ‘Aye, sir.’

      ‘Have you a job?’

      ‘No, but I have a neighbour looking out for me.’

      ‘Well, I own a factory and I sure could use a brave young fellow like yourself. How d’you feel about that?’

      Joe couldn’t believe his luck. In payment for saving this man’s daughter, he was being offered employment. And though the man was still red-faced and breathless from his unaccustomed exertion, he looked to be honest and straightforward.

      ‘I feel grand about it, sir,’ Joe said.

      ‘Are you looking for that sort of work?’

      ‘I am looking for any kind of work that pays a wage, sir,’ Joe said. ‘But I have to tell you that I have never done work in any sort of factory before.’

      ‘Are you willing to learn?’

      ‘Certainly, sir.’

      ‘That’s all I wanted to hear,’ Brian said. ‘Now I have to find out what is going to happen to my coachman and sort out stabling for the pony, because I will leave him and the carriage here tonight. And I dare say you have to collect your belongings. Let’s say we meet back here in about half an hour and we will go home by taxi.’

      ‘Home, sir?’ Joe repeated.

      ‘Yes, home, Mr Joe Sullivan,’ Brian said, clapping Joe on the back. ‘Where my wife, Norah, will, at the very least, want to shake you by the hand.’

       TWO

      ‘We must go straight home, my dear,’ Brian said, as he helped his daughter into the taxi. ‘It would never do for your mother to get wind of your mishap before I have a chance to tell her. I am afraid we will have to forgo tea at Macy’s.’

      ‘I don’t mind that, Daddy,’ Gloria said plaintively. ‘I ache everywhere, to tell you the truth, there is a pounding pain in my head and everything is wavy before my eyes.’

      Brian felt guilty. He saw that Gloria’s face was as white as lint and that her eyes seemed to stand out in her head and were glazed slightly with pain. By giving in to Gloria’s demands that afternoon, he knew he had put her life in danger. ‘That’s not to be wondered at, my dear, after the way you were thrown about in that carriage,’ he said gently. ‘You are probably suffering from shock too. As soon as we get home, you are going to be tucked up in bed and I am sending for the doctor.’

      The fact that Gloria made no comment about this was not lost on her father. ‘Lean against me, my dear,’ he suggested, ‘and close your eyes. That was a dreadful and frightening thing to happen to you, but we will have you home and comfy in no time at all.’

      Joe was waiting for them, excited at the thought of riding in a taxi, for he had never done that in the whole of his life before, but as he climbed in he noticed the pallid face of the child, Gloria, as she cuddled up to her father and he said, ‘I hope you are not too uncomfortable, miss?’

      Gloria sighed as if the effort of speech was too much for her and it was her father who answered. ‘Battered and bruised and in shock, I think,’ he said. ‘We’ll have the doctor look at her when we are home.’

      ‘Have you heard how the coachman is, sir?’

      ‘No,’ Brian said, ‘only that the poor fellow was unconscious and taken to the hospital, but my factory manager, Bert Clifford, is going to see how he is as soon as he can, and he will send me word. I hope that he will be all right. Tim is a fine man and a good worker, and has been with me for years.’

      Joe, though, doubted that the man could have escaped without serious injury because he had caught the full power of the frantic rearing pony’s hoofs.

      But СКАЧАТЬ