“Please. I need to apologise and to tell her that she’s right. She can help me dress and then someone can help me into the chair. I promise I won’t hurt her again. I want to put things right.”
Esther gazed at her daughter for a long moment. “I agree but only on one condition: that there’s no repeat of your earlier performance.”
“There won’t be. I promise.”
“I’ll get Katie then. And I just hope she is as forgiving as always.”
“Shall I brush yer hair?” Katie was quiet and subdued and Rhiannon knew that even though she may have forgiven her, she was still hurting from her earlier words.
“If you just pass me my brush I can do it myself. … Katie, I’m terribly sorry. I really didn’t mean those words. I don’t even know where they came from. I’ve never thought that you were less than me. If anything, after my behaviour today, I realise that you’re far better than I am.”
Katie carefully folded Rhiannon’s nightgown and placed it on the end of the bed.
“Ye’ve said that afore about Samuel loving me. Like it’s my fault. Do ye want him for yerself?”
“No. Not in the way you mean. I just,” Rhiannon threw up her hands, the hairbrush clasped tightly in her right hand. “How do I explain? I just want what you have. Not Samuel. But someone to love me. To care for me.”
“There’ll be someone one day.”
“Not if I’m stuck in this chair.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m crippled. Why can’t anyone see that? I’m crippled. And useless.”
“Ye’re not useless. Not at all. And what makes ye Rhiannon, is still there inside ye. That hasn’t changed.”
“But no one can see it.”
“Mark saw it.”
“Who?”
“Samuel’s friend Mark. He was here and prayed for ye. Perhaps ye don’t remember,” Katie’s voice got softer at the puzzled look on her friend’s face. “If he saw it, others will too. Anyways, yer father thinks that ye could walk again.”
“Well, when’s that going to happen?”
“Ye have to be patient.”
“I’m tired of being patient. I want to walk. I want to be me again. I want to do the things I used to do. I’m tired of being sick. I’m tired of life. I want things to change now.”
Katie took the hairbrush from Rhiannon’s hand and used it to gather the hair into one bunch in her hands. Dividing it into three she started to braid the hair. “I know.”
“How do you know?”
Katie leaned around Rhiannon and picked up a ribbon from the dressing table and fastened off the braid before answering. “I get tired sometimes too of being separated from me family. I want to go back. I want things the way they once were. But it’s not going to happen. Not yet anyways.”
“But,” Rhiannon looked down at her hands then at Katie, “if you went home, what about us? What about Samuel?”
“Samuel and I are merely friends.”
Rhiannon opened her mouth to say something then closed it again. If Katie didn’t want to recognise the truth, then perhaps it was for the best. None of them were ready to let her go just yet anyway.
Instead she asked, “Do you think you could find Lola and the two of you lift me into the chair? I want to go outside now.”
Katie’s smile was her reward.
Rhiannon’s Journal
September 23, 1830
I snapped at Katie yesterday and said some terrible things. I’m sorry I hurt her. I love her – she’s like a sister to me – and I don’t want to hurt her. But it’s so unfair. Katie – Mother – Father – Seamus – everyone – they all go about their own lives as if nothing’s happened and I’m stuck here in this bed. Forever. I’m never going to walk again. I can see it in all their faces. No one will come out and say it but I can see it there nonetheless. And I don’t want to use that chair. It makes me look like an invalid and when I sit in it I feel like an old woman.
I want to walk. I want to get out of bed. I want to run. I want to be free again. Why can’t anyone understand that? If life for me means never being able to walk again then I wish the silly fever had claimed my life. Life without my legs – without being able to walk or do all the things that I enjoy – is no life at all.
October 1830
Chapter Thirteen
“Katie?” Katie turned when the doctor called her name. “Could you come into my surgery for a moment?”
Katie followed the doctor into his surgery where she was surprised to see Esther. She had assumed that the doctor wanted help with a patient although he seemed to take fewer and fewer private patients these days and even more rarely asked for Katie to assist him. Esther never crossed the threshold to the surgery yet here she was and she’d obviously been crying for there were tear streaks down her cheeks and a rather wet handkerchief held loosely in her slender hands.
“Sit down,” the doctor indicated a chair and slowly Katie sunk into it. Her heart felt heavy within her chest. It must be bad news. Perhaps her family? Da? Or Kieran? What if one of them had – no, she wouldn’t think of it. Perhaps – but the doctor was talking and she forced herself to listen.
“Katie, I received two items in the mail today. One is good news.” That’s a relief, she thought. “The other – well the other isn’t.” Katie felt her heart go cold. Da!
“The good news concerns you. We have been granted permission to have your sentence pardoned and to adopt you as our daughter.”
“Really?” Katie jumped up but sat down when she remembered there was bad news to come.
The doctor smiled. “Yes, really. And we’re as excited about it as you are. I’ve sent a message to the magistrate and he should be here soon and we’ll get the paper work finalised immediately.” He paused and tugged his beard. “Today I also had another letter and it’s also the reason I sent for the magistrate.”
Magistrate? Then perhaps it didn’t involve her family. They wouldn’t send for the magistrate if it was just to tell her that Da or … or someone had died.
Esther had started crying again, and the doctor went and stood behind his wife and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. Then he looked straight at Katie. “This other letter said that if we didn’t hand Seamus over to his father then I would be responsible for any harm that came to this house and those that live in it.”
Katie frowned as she tried to make sense of what the doctor had just said.
“A threat?” she finally asked.
“Yes, Katie, a threat. What I don’t understand is why this man is so intent on getting Seamus. It’s already been established that he isn’t the boy’s father and yet –” he shrugged. “I don’t understand.”
“Is it possible …” Katie stopped. An idea had formed but even to herself it seemed unlikely.
“Go on.”
“Could he want – this man that says he’s Seamus’s father – could he want something else? I mean not really want Seamus – but want something like – like money?”
“He hasn’t asked for money.”
“It was a silly idea.”
“No it wasn’t,” Esther spoke for the first time. “He wants something. It might be Seamus. It might be just to scare us. It might be money or something else. But whatever it is, he’s not going to give up until he gets it.”
“What are we going to do?” Katie’s voice trembled as she voiced the question on everyone’s mind.
“I’m going to talk to the magistrate again. As soon as he gets here.” The doctor pulled out his watch and frowned at the time. “I would have thought he’d be here by now. And we’re not going to say anything to Rhiannon just yet. Ah, here he is,” as Lola showed the magistrate into the surgery. It wasn’t a large room and now with the four of them, it was rather cramped. Katie looked enquiringly at the doctor – perhaps he would prefer if she left – but he nodded at her to stay.
Briefly the doctor filled the magistrate in on all that had happened. When he finished the magistrate loo
ked serious.
“Have you any plans, sir?”
The doctor looked surprised. “In what way?”
“I had heard a rumour that you were thinking of moving to Wallis Plains.”
“That was before my daughter became ill.”
“So you’ve given up the idea?”
“Not entirely.”
“And your daughter? Is she well again?”
The doctor shook his head.
“I’m sorry to hear that, because if you still held plans for moving, I would suggest that now would be a good time.”
“You think we’d be safer there?” Esther asked.
“I do.”
“What if he followed us there?” Katie’s voice was barely above a whisper but the magistrate heard and frowned.
“I’m hoping he won’t do that. You see, I think if you started making plans to move it would – how do you say it? – force his hand.”
“Force his hand?” the doctor was puzzled.
“Yes, force his hand. I think if he thought you were going to get away, he’d react and be forced to do something. And then we’d have him.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“Make your plans. Make sure everyone knows that you’re moving soon and won’t return. I’ll post men to guard the house. You won’t see them of course but they’ll be there. When this man does make his move, ” he brought his hands together loudly making the other three occupants jump, “we’ve got him.”
“What if we don’t want to move?” Esther was looking even more confused and upset than she had been when Katie first entered the room.
“You don’t have to move. Just make plans like you are going to move. Understand?”
Esther nodded. “I think so.” She turned to her husband, “What do you think about this?”
“I think it’s a good idea. But I think we will make plans in earnest. We thought of doing it before Rhiannon got sick and then forgot about it, but I think she’s now recovered sufficiently to be moved. Katie?”
“Yes, sir?”
“How do you feel about moving?”
“I – I –” Katie stumbled over her words. How could she say that she didn’t want to move when it was in the best interests of everyone else? It was selfish of her to be thinking of herself at a time like this. But she was tired of being uprooted and having to start over again someplace else. At least this time she would be moving with her family. Family! Yes she was going to be one of them. She had been pardoned. It had only just registered.
The doctor obviously realised that he was going to get no more from Katie and turned to the magistrate. “There’s another matter I wanted to take up with you. I had a letter about Katie’s pardon.” As the doctor pulled the papers from his desk he glanced at Katie, “You may go now if you like.”
“Thank ye, sir,” she bowed to the occupants of the room and moved to the door.
“We want to adopt Katie.”
With spirits lifting at his words, Katie gently closed the door behind her.
Rhiannon woke with a start. It was still dark – probably not long after midnight she guessed – but she could hear people moving about and not far away voices shouting. Within minutes she heard running feet in the passageway. Something had happened!
More feet hurriedly descended the stairs. More shouts. Then a loud crash.
Rhiannon suddenly felt frightened. Something had happened and they’d forgotten all about her. They were all going to go away and leave her. No one had remembered that she couldn’t walk. She would be stuck here forever and no one would help her.
Digging her elbows into the bed she somehow managed to raise herself into a half-sitting position in the bed. She dragged herself as close to the edge of the bed as she could and then by twisting her upper body she half-rolled into an upright position. Grasping each leg with her hands, she managed to lift them one by one and push them so that they were dangling over the side of the bed.
With her feet still a distance from the floor she gingerly tried edging off the bed, one hand holding onto the rails of the head of the bed and the other onto the chest beside her bed for the support that her paralysed legs could not provide, hoping that somehow she could take her own weight.
Thump! Her legs crumbled beneath her and she landed on the floor. She screamed as pain shot through her legs and back.
Her bedroom door flew open.
“Rhiannon!” Her mother set her candle down on the chest then called for Katie who entered with a sleeping Seamus in her arms.
“What’s going on?” Rhiannon and Katie both asked at the same time.
“Help me get Rhiannon back into bed,” Esther enlisted Katie’s help.
Depositing Seamus on the far side of Rhiannon’s bed, Katie helped Esther half-drag Rhiannon up into the bed. Rhiannon moaned as they settled her in next to Seamus.
“Did we hurt ye?” Katie asked anxiously.
“No. When I fell – it hurt.”
“Are you all right?” In the dim light Esther checked for bruises.
“I think so.”
“I’ll send Father to check that you haven’t done any serious damage. What were you doing trying to get out of bed anyway?” Esther demanded.
“I heard commotion. I thought you had forgotten about me.”
Esther stroked her daughter’s hair from her face. “We would never forget about you. But I need to get back. Would you like Seamus to stay here?”
“Please.”
After her mother had gone, Rhiannon grasped Katie’s hand. “What’s happening?”
“Someone set fire to the outbuildings. Two have collapsed. Yer father and the men are trying to save the other one.”
“Is the house safe?”
“We think so. But yer father was concerned that it was a ploy to get every grown-up out of the house so that someone could sneak in and steal Seamus.”
Rhiannon was quiet for a moment. “Then the threat hasn’t gone away.”
“No. Yer father –” Katie stopped remembering that the doctor had kept the news from Rhiannon for fear of upsetting her and hindering her recovery. But surely it wouldn’t hurt to inform her now.
“Yer father had a letter a few days ago that threatened to harm the family if he didn’t give Seamus back.”
“Seamus’s father?”
“Well that’s just it. He isn’t Seamus’s father. At least not according to the marriage records and the eyewitness of the minister. But no one’s been able to locate Seamus’s real father. The minister had information as to his whereabouts, but he’s not there and no one knows where he is.”
“But this man still wants Seamus.”
“He wants to hurt yer father more, I think.”
“Blackmail?”
“Maybe.”
Rhiannon was silent. “I’m scared.”
“We all are. But hopefully that man will be caught. Now,” Katie pulled the blanket higher around Rhiannon’s shoulders and tucked it in. “Ye stay there and look after Seamus. Scream if anyone comes in. I’m going down to stand guard at the bottom of the stairs to make sure no one comes in to the house without our permission.”
“You’ll be careful, won’t you?”
“Of course I will,” Katie promised. “And I’ll even come back and let ye know when it’s all over.”
Rhiannon followed the light as Katie picked up her candle and moved from the room. Taking Seamus into her arms she held him tightly to her chest, squeezed her eyes shut and prayed. It was a long time before Katie came to tell her that the magistrate’s men had apprehended the man and even longer before she finally drifted into a sleep filled with running feet, burning buildings, and her own silent screams.
Rhiannon’s Journal
October 12, 1830
The magistrate has caught the man who set fire to the outbuildings and it is the same man who has been trying to take Seamus from us all these months. He is now in the custody of the magistrate and finally we can all relax. He
is no longer a threat. I can’t begin to describe the relief we all feel. The nightmare of the past few months is finally over.
I don’t think anyone knows how scared I was that night. If the fire had spread to the house would anyone have got me out in time? Father says that nothing would have prevented him rescuing me and I can see he means it but I don’t think anyone really understands how helpless I felt. I couldn’t have saved myself even if my life had depended on it.
I know now that I will never walk again. Father sat down with me one day and patiently explained the nature of my illness and the effect it had on my body. He didn’t come out and say directly that I would never walk but I could sense that was what he meant. As he was talking he had tears in his eyes and I could see how much it pained him to have to tell me. That’s why I’ve put on a brave face and not let any of them see how much it hurts me to know that I’ll never walk again.
They all think that I’ve accepted the news so well. ‘Mature’ was the word I heard Mother use to Father when they thought I was asleep. If only they knew how I really felt …
Mother and Father continue to make plans to move to Wallis Plains. Father leaves soon to find accommodation. Katie doesn’t say a lot but I can see that she doesn’t want to go. She’s been uprooted so often that I guess it must be scary for her.
It makes little difference to me. Whether here or there I still can’t walk. I’m still stuck in a bed or chair. I’m still useless.
So one nightmare is over. But for me, there is another one. It will never be over until the day I die.
November 1830
Chapter Fourteen
“Well what do you think, Pastor? Would you like a horse like that some day?”
That morning Samuel had received an invitation from the police magistrate to visit in his home. As soon as he’d eaten the delicious luncheon that the magistrate’s wife had prepared, his host had hurried him out to the paddock to show him his latest acquisition. Now Samuel reluctantly tore his gaze from the beautiful thoroughbred horse in front of him and turned to his host.
To Rise Above Page 12
