A Second Chance Read Online Free PDF Page B

sort it all—I’ll just…’ She stared around the room
with an air of desperation. ‘I’ll get Frank!’
    Lizzie flung the bedroom door open and
leaned out into the passage. ‘Frank!’ she called. ‘Come and help
me!’
    Frank appeared within seconds, Benjy tucked
under one arm. The baby stared around with an air of mild surprise
at having been so rapidly moved from one room to another, while
Frank’s face was all concern. ‘What’s wrong? Are you all right,
Lizzie?’
    ‘What do you think you’re doing, carrying
Benjy like that!’ Lizzie said indignantly. ‘Give him here.’
    She retrieved the baby and made soothing
noises, rendered quite unnecessary by Benjy’s beaming smile at the
sight of his mother. ‘It’s Amy, not me,’ Lizzie said when she
managed to drag her attention away from Benjy. ‘She’s not
well.’
    ‘Yes I am! ’ Amy managed to make
herself heard at last. ‘I don’t think I’ve been so well in
ages!’
    ‘She looks all right to me,’ Frank said,
taking in Amy’s radiant face.
    ‘Well, she’s not, the poor thing. It’s all
got too much for you, hasn’t it, Amy?’ Lizzie hurried on, giving
Amy no chance to reply. ‘Having to be brave all these years, with him being such a trial. And then the strain of him getting
so sick. Now she’s finally able to take things a bit easier, and
it’s got on top of her at last. Having that Miss Millish to stay,
too, that’s been the last straw.’ She paused for breath, then
announced solemnly, ‘Amy’s got a bit muddled in the head.’
    ‘I’m not muddled, I’m not!’ Amy protested.
‘It’s true!’
    Lizzie nodded sagely, as if Amy’s insistence
was further evidence. ‘You see what I mean? She thinks Miss Millish
is the little girl they took off her.’
    ‘Oh, heck!’ Frank said, clearly sharing
Lizzie’s alarm. ‘You’d better get her to lie down, take things
quiet. Shall I get her some water? Or laudanum or something.’
    Amy looked up at their worried faces, and it
was only gratitude for their concern that stopped her from laughing
aloud. ‘Does Frank know about Ann?’
    ‘Yes, he does,’ Lizzie admitted. ‘I had to
tell him once—oh, years and years ago—when he’d gone upsetting you,
mentioning seeing the other fellow in Auckland.’
    ‘I’ve wondered once or twice if you did
know, Frank. I’m glad you do, it makes things simpler—’
    ‘Never mind talking about it now,’ Lizzie
cut in. ‘You sit there quietly. Frank’s right, you ought to have a
lie down. Yes, that’s a good idea, Frank, get some laudanum.’
    ‘No,’ Amy said, quietly but firmly. ‘I don’t
want to lie down, and I don’t want any laudanum. No, stay here,
Frank, I won’t take any medicine, so it’s no good you fetching it.’
She smiled at their anxious expressions. ‘And I haven’t gone funny
in the head, either.’
    ‘Now, Amy, you should just—’
    ‘Lizzie,’ Amy interrupted. ‘I want to talk.
Will you both be quiet and listen for a minute? Please?’
    Lizzie’s worried expression did not ease.
She sat down on the bed close to Amy, while Frank took the chair
beside the bed.
    ‘It’s all right,’ Amy said. ‘I know it
sounds like I’ve gone silly, but it’s all right. Really it is.’
    She paused to gather her thoughts and
arrange them in some sort of order, fit to be shared with
others.
    ‘Sarah told me herself,’ she began. ‘Those
people, the ones she calls Mother and Father, they weren’t really
her parents at all. They adopted her when she was just a little
baby. When I had to give her away.’
    She had thought she could say it calmly, but
the sudden rush of painful memories took her by surprise. She bit
on her lip and stared unseeing at the bedroom window, and felt the
warmth of Lizzie’s hand as it took hold of hers.
    ‘Lily mentioned once that Miss Millish
wasn’t really her cousin,’ Lizzie said. ‘Her aunt couldn’t have any
more babies, so they adopted a little girl for her. I didn’t