The Tulip Girl Read online

  For all my family and friends, with love

  Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Prologue

  APRIL 1959

  ‘No, please. Don’t shoot.’

  Trembling, Maddie stretched out her hand towards the man holding the gun. Beyond him, through the barn’s open door, she could see the tulips, row upon row like a multicoloured rainbow, dazzling in the warm sunlight. She had planted those fields with her own bare hands. Was everything she loved, everything she had worked for, striven for, now to be blown away in a moment’s madness?

  Here in the barn it was cool and dim. They stood facing each other, the four of them. Maddie, the two men and the boy.

  ‘Please,’ she whispered, begging as she had never begged in her life. ‘Please, let the boy go?’

  ‘Why should I?’ His tone was harsh and cruel, so different from the voice she knew so well. Or thought she had known. ‘If it weren’t for him and . . .’ The barrel of the shotgun wavered slightly and then swung sharply away from pointing at Maddie and the boy towards the other man, standing so still and silent in the shadows. ‘You!’

  There was such venom in his voice, a bitter hatred that had been festering for eleven long years.

  A shadow appeared in the barn doorway. A woman’s shadow. Maddie’s eyes widened and she gave a little gasp of fear. Then she touched the boy standing near her on his shoulder, giving him a tiny push. ‘Go,’ she breathed. ‘Go to her.’

  She saw him glance at the two men, who seemed, now, only aware of each other.

  ‘Go on,’ she urged.

  The boy took a step, his gaze still on the men. Then he ran. The barrel swung again, following the small figure hurtling towards the door.

  As she saw the man’s finger move towards the trigger, Maddie lunged forward, her hand outstretched to push the barrel aside and spoil his aim.

  ‘No!’ Maddie cried but the deafening blast drowned her scream. Lead shot splattered against the wall of the barn and in the doorway a figure fell, sprawling in the dirt.

  Before Maddie’s eyes, the rainbow field of tulips beyond seemed to turn blood red . . .

  One

  APRIL 1946

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Madeleine March.’

  ‘Far too fancy . . .’ Harriet Trowbridge sniffed her disapproval.

  ‘We call her Maddie,’ the matron said hastily.

  ‘Plain little scrap of a thing, isn’t she? I imagined she’d be . . . Are you sure she’s the one?’

  ‘Oh yes. Abandoned outside the gate in 1932. No one’s ever come to see her so there’s no family that we know of and I don’t think anyone’s going to come looking her for now after fourteen years, do you? That’s what you were looking for, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is, yes. But she doesn’t look old enough.’ Harriet shot a disbelieving look at the matron. ‘She only looks about twelve. And a small twelve, at that.’

  Mrs Potter began to bridle. ‘I hope you’re not doubting my word, Mrs Trowbridge?’

  ‘No,’ the woman murmured, her thoughtful gaze still on the girl standing before them. ‘But now I see her, I don’t know if she’ll manage the work.’

  ‘She’s strong.’ The matron now cast an anxious look at her visitor. ‘And – and biddable.’ There was only the merest hint of hesitation in Mrs Potter’s voice. She wasn’t above lying through her teeth if it meant seeing this particular child gone from her orphanage. Mrs Trowbridge seemed Heaven-sent, though anyone less angel-like would have been hard to find.

  She was tall and bony-thin and dressed from head to foot in black. A felt hat was pulled down low over her forehead and the well-worn coat fell almost to her ankles, covering thick lisle stockings and stout, good-quality lace-up shoes. Her features were sharp. Her nose was straight and thin and her mouth seemed permanently pursed. Her grey eyes were bright and missed nothing, but there was no warmth in them, no humour, no kindliness.

  ‘I should need to see her birth certificate. I presume she has one?’

  Mrs Potter sighed. ‘Well, yes. But it won’t tell you much. Even the actual date of her birth is a guess. She was brought here on the twenty-fifth of March 1932 and we reckoned her to be no more than a week or two old – a month at the most – so that’s the date we used.’

  The surname was now obvious, but Harriet asked, ‘Whatever possessed you to give her the name of Madeleine?’

  ‘We didn’t,’ Mrs Potter snapped, trying valiantly to hold on to her patience. ‘It was scribbled on a bit of paper and pinned to the blanket she was wrapped in.’ The matron shook her head sadly, expressing a sudden pity for the child, whom, though she had been the bane of the woman’s life for the past fourteen years, Mrs Potter could still not wholly dislike. ‘Poor little mite hadn’t any clothes. She was completely naked, ’cept for the blanket.’

  Years earlier when Alice Potter had come to work at the Mayfield Home as a young widow, she had lavished upon the poor, motherless mites all the affection she would have given to her own children had she been so blessed. It was only the passing years and the responsibility of the post she now held that had made her often brusque and insensitive. Still, at times, her maternal instinct surfaced and she would promise herself that she would be kinder, more affectionate towards the unfortunate waifs and strays in her charge.

  But her resolution faltered when dealing with the likes of Maddie March.

  The girl stood facing them now in mutinous silence, scowling so fiercely that her eyebrows almost met above the bridge of her tiny nose. Her teeth were clenched so tightly that they squeaked against each other and her mouth pouted ominously. The girl was thin and pale, but her blue eyes glittered with a rebellion that Matron and all the staff could not quite quell whatever dire punishment they inflicted upon her. Her short, straight hair was fair and could have been pretty but it was badly cut, hacked at by a harassed Mrs Potter with no time to spare for pandering to vanity. Washed only once a week by being plunged beneath the bathwater and soaped with carbolic, it was dull and lifeless. The girl wore a shapeless grey gymslip, tied around the waist with a girdle, a white blouse, knee-length grey socks and lace-up shoes.

  Arriving back at the orphanage from the village school that took all the local children fr
om five to fourteen, except those who transferred to the High School in the nearby town, Maddie had been told to report to Mrs Potter’s room at once. She had not even been given time to change into her navy dress, her ‘Sunday Best’ that was only worn to Church or on very special occasions; Christmas Day, New Year’s Day or when Sir Peter Mayfield, the Chairman of the Board of Governors, visited.

  Maddie eyed today’s visitor who was taking in every aspect of her appearance. Boldly, the girl returned the woman’s critical stare, but resisted the urge to stick out her tongue.

  The two women continued talking as if Maddie were not present.

  ‘March ’thirty-two, you say?’ For a moment, Harriet Trowbridge seemed almost as if she were thinking back and remembering what life had been like then. ‘So,’ she added slowly, ‘she is old enough to leave school.’

  The matron nodded vigorously. ‘Oh yes, she’s only kept going to school because . . .’ Mrs Potter cleared her throat and altered what she had been going to say. ‘I mean, until a position could be found for her.’ It wouldn’t do for this woman to know that already Maddie had been turned down for two jobs during the three weeks since her fourteenth birthday let alone the four prospective foster homes who had, over the years, sent her back to the orphanage, the last one after only two days.

  Harriet sniffed. ‘Right, I’ll take her, then. When can you have her ready?’

  ‘Oh, right away . . .’ Then, lest she should appear too eager to rid herself of the girl, Mrs Potter added hastily, ‘To save you the trouble of coming back for her, ma’am.’

  The woman nodded and seated herself in a chair. ‘Very well, but be quick about it. I don’t like being away from the farm for long.’

  Maddie felt Matron’s hand gripping her shoulder and propelling her from the room. ‘This is your lucky day, Maddie March.’ And mine, Mrs Potter was thinking. ‘Get your things together. You’re leaving. And this time, m’girl, there’s no coming back here if you don’t suit, so just you mind you . . .’

  ‘Leaving?’ Maddie tried to stand still but the stout woman was no match for her and she was pulled across the hall and up the stairs towards the long dormitory. ‘Where’m I going?’

  ‘You’re going to work on a farm. Be a milkmaid or summat. You’ll like that.’

  Maddie tried to imagine what it would be like, but failed. She had seen little beyond the high walls of the Mayfield Home for Orphan Girls except on the walk through the village in crocodile fashion with the other fourteen girls to school or to the church. There was the occasional trip on the bus to the nearest town of Wellandon, but even then there was no freedom to wander the streets and gaze in shop windows.

  Apart from one or two, who at the age of eleven went on the bus to the Girls’ High School in the town, all the girls from the Home attended the local village school until they reached the lawful leaving age. But no one else there wore uniform – only the Mayfield girls. Immediately, they were different, set apart.

  So, for nine years, Maddie had marched to and from the school in Eastmere’s village centre. Through rain and snow or beneath boiling sun. In winter, her hands were blue with cold for she had no gloves. In summer, she sweated in the gymslip and blouse they wore all the year round. Only the High School girls were provided with their school’s regulation gingham summer dress.

  But on Sunday, everything changed. Sunday was Maddie’s favourite day of the week. No school and hardly any chores about the Home that all the girls had to take turns to do. No weeding in the vegetable garden or peeling potatoes. No helping to wash up twenty sets of plates, cups, saucers, knives, forks and spoons for the girls and the live-in staff after tea when the day workers had gone home. No washing in the laundry that was Maddie’s Saturday morning chore with her hands becoming red and wrinkled in the hot water or her fingers trapped by the mangle if she wasn’t quick enough feeding in the sheets. On a Sunday, there was only helping the younger girls to make their beds and clean their shoes for Church.

  It was all thanks to the local vicar who served on the Board of Governors. He had insisted that the girls should strictly observe the Lord’s Day. True, they had to attend Matins and Evensong and go to Sunday School, winter and summer, and the only book they were allowed to read on the Sabbath was the Bible, but for Maddie it was a day of blissful idleness.

  Only on a Sunday could she dawdle to look over the hedges at the fields of waving corn or cows grazing in the meadows or pause to gaze into the window of Mrs Grange’s village shop. And only on a Sunday had she seen whole families together, mothers and fathers with their daughters dressed in pretty frocks and sons in white shirts and ties and short, neatly-creased trousers. Or older, spotty-faced youths in their first pair of long trousers sporting, like a badge declaring their entry into manhood, an occasional tiny tuft of cotton wool on their chins where they’d tried their first attempts at shaving. Boys who, unseen by their parents and Mrs Potter, gave a cheeky wink to the girls from the Home.

  Maddie had lost count of the times she had been reprimanded for smiling saucily back at them.

  Oh yes, thought Maddie, only on a Sunday had she ever really seen the outside world. Suddenly, she quickened her pace and ran up the stairs ahead of Mrs Potter, who was puffing already.

  Maddie March was leaving the orphanage. She was going out into the great, big world. Her heart beat faster and her eyes sparkled with excitement.

  Wherever it was she was going, it couldn’t possibly be worse than this place.

  Two

  ‘You don’t mean we’re going in that thing?’

  Maddie would not have admitted it in a month of precious Sundays, but the huge black and white horse, standing patiently on the drive and harnessed to a farm cart, frightened her.

  ‘Huh! Not good enough for you, eh, Miss Hoity-Toity?’ Harriet sniffed. ‘If it’s good enough to deliver milk around the village every morning, it’s good enough for the likes of you to ride in, girl. We can’t afford a fancy pony and trap.’

  Maddie glanced behind her at the faces pressed against every window on the three floors of the towering Victorian building.

  Word had gone round. ‘Maddie March is leaving. Come and see her go?’

  ‘Whatever for? She’ll be back in a day or so. No one can put up with her.’

  ‘She won’t be coming back this time. I heard Mrs Potter say so. She’s too old now.’

  ‘Not – not coming back?’ Tears filled a small girl’s eyes. ‘Not never?’

  Jenny Wren, so foolishly named by the over-sentimental Deputy Matron on duty when the child had been found abandoned outside the gates, ran in search of Maddie.

  ‘Don’t go, Maddie. Don’t leave me. What’ll I do without you?’

  ‘You’ll be all right. The others’ll look after you.’

  The child hiccupped miserably. ‘They won’t. They tease me. Only you ever stick up for me, Maddie.’

  It was true. The scrawny child, who always managed to look unkempt no matter how ever much they scrubbed her, brushed her hair or tidied her clothes, was the butt of cruel bullying. Only Maddie, feisty and spirited, was ever on her side.

  Jenny and Maddie had a lot in common. They were both thin and small for their age. Both had blonde hair and blue eyes and both had been abandoned outside the orphanage, Jenny as a newborn baby. But there the similarity ended, for Jenny was timid and weak, a born victim. Yet Maddie had loved her like a younger sister and had tried to protect her.

  ‘I’m sorry, honest I am,’ Maddie said, reaching out and touching the other girl’s pale cheek. And she was, for she knew what Jenny’s life would be like once she, Maddie, was gone. ‘Mebbe in September when you’re fourteen, they’ll find you a job an’ all.’

  The younger girl sniffled hopelessly. ‘Who’d want me?’

  To that, Maddie had no answer.

  Now, as she glanced back at the other girls, she grinned and stepped boldly towards the horse. As she stood beneath him, he lowered his massive head and nuzzled her shoulder leavi
ng a wet patch on her grey coat.

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Rajah.’

  Maddie reached up and patted his white nose and, without consciously thinking about it, she made a soft crooning noise in her throat. Then, her fear of the animal overcome, she looked up again at the windows and gave a royal wave to the watchers. But only to Jenny, standing at the top of the steps, did she blow a kiss. ‘Chin up, Jen. I’ll write to you.’

  ‘Promise?’ came the quavering voice.

  ‘Cross me heart.’ Maddie made the sign over where she presumed her heart to be.

  ‘Come along. We’re wasting time.’ Harriet was climbing up on to the front of the cart. ‘Put your box in the back and sit up here beside me.’

  Mrs Potter herself helped Maddie lift the wooden box containing all her worldly possessions into the back of the cart. ‘Now you be a good girl this time,’ she hissed. ‘I don’t want you turning up on my doorstep again. You hear?’

  ‘Not a chance, Mrs Potter,’ Maddie grinned impishly. ‘You won’t see me again.’

  ‘Let’s hope not,’ the matron answered tartly. ‘You’ve put more grey hairs in my head, Maddie March, than all the other girls put together over the twenty years I’ve been here.’

  If she was expecting the girl to feel contrition then Mrs Potter was wasting her time, for Maddie’s grin only widened as she climbed up to sit beside Harriet. As the woman slapped the reins, the horse plodded forward and the cart scrunched down the gravel driveway away from the imposing square building that had been the only home Maddie had ever known. But the young girl did not even glance back once.

  Nothing could dim her excitement at leaving, not Jenny’s tears nor the silent, ramrod-stiff Mrs Trowbridge driving the farm cart with surprising expertise. Not even the rain that began to fall steadily as they drove away could dampen Maddie’s spirits.

  The village of Eastmere lay amidst the flat, fertile land of south Lincolnshire, three miles east of Wellandon, a thriving market town clustered along the banks of the River Welland. But it was not towards the town that Harriet Trowbridge drove the horse and cart but along a lane leading out of the village southwards into the open countryside.