Читать книгу Patriotic Lady - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 7

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Amy knew and detested that Welsh village; she had been born at Neston in Cheshire and when she was three years old her mother, widow of Henry Lyon, blacksmith, had come to Hawarden to share the poverty of Dame Kidd's white-washed cottage, where the continuous mists from the gaunt moorlands soaked the thatch and stained the plaster, and the frequent rains spluttered on the one fire and slashed at the dirty panes of the windows shadowed by the eaves.

To this miserable refuge the downcast girl returned because there was nowhere else to go and her grandmother knew it; they kissed and cried together; there was no need to ask for explanations, the case was obvious. Amy Lyon sat down in her draggled silks and wondered what she should do, while the dark-eyed toddling child in the red shawls eyed her curiously.

Dame Kidd regretted the fallen fortunes of her pretty grandchild who did not seem to know how to make the most of her opportunities, but she uttered no reproaches; the three women had lived together good-humouredly in the lazy squalor of a Welsh peasant's life until Mrs. Lyon had gone to London to better herself, and Amy had followed soon after, seeking the fabled glories of the capital with the high heart of ignorant youth.

And here she was, returned for the second time without a penny in her soiled pockets and with tears in her handsome eyes. What was to be done?

The old woman and the girl faced one another in some dismay in the flicker of the scanty, cherished fire.

Amy could not be considered to have made a wise investment of her charms; on her previous visit to Flintshire she had borne the swarthy child who now clung to her silk skirts and clutched at her fingers. She was evasive about the father of this uninteresting infant. Dame Kidd understood that he had been a sailor on a pressgang ship at the Tower Wharf in London, the captain, Amy had hinted—but what did it matter? He had sailed away without leaving Amy a farthing and was quite outside the present calculations, which centred round the fact that in two months' time Amy would again be the mother of an unwanted child; nor was the delicate question of the paternity of the coming infant likely to be settled to the satisfaction of Amy, who, with tears, regrets, and a few outbursts against her ill luck, confessed to Dame Kidd that she had been so very wild and giddy at Up Park, had so romped and gambolled, been so anxious to please all the gentlemen that it was useless to expect any one of them to assume the responsibility for her trouble.