Connie’s Courage Read Online Free PDF

and sisters to live here.
    â€˜This place will be all right for now,’ Elsie assured him again, with a cheerfulness she was far from feeling. ‘Once I’ve given it a good clean and got some of our own things in, it will look a lot better – you wait and see.’
    Harry smiled. He knew how proud both his parents were of him. But he had seen the pretty young girl crossing the yard earlier, her face pinched with cold and hunger, her dress shabby and faded. His heart had gone out to her. There was no way he wanted to see his own sisters ending up like that. He had been granted some special leave because of his father’s death, and he decided he would spend that time making enquiries to see if he could get a teaching post with a less prestigious school. He needed to find somewhere where he could live out, and not in, as he had to at Hutton, and to try to get some extra part-time work to help with the family finances.
    â€˜Titanic
Sinks – Hundreds Feared Dead!’
    Gideon’s stomach lurched with disbelief as he stared at the headlines in his morning paper.
    He picked it up and scanned the front page article. It was true! The liner its owners had claimed was unsinkable, had sunk!
    That news, in itself, would have been shocking enough, without the fact that Connie had been on board it.
    Ellie was upstairs in the nursery, and he had a mad impulse to throw the papers on the fire before she could see them.
    He heard her footsteps crossing the hall and she came into the room, her eyes bright with happiness and love; her mouth curved into a delighted smile.
    â€˜Gideon, you’ll never guess what! Joshua has just smiled at me! Nurse says he is still too young, but I know that he did. Oh, I wish you could have seen –’ Abruptly she stopped speaking as she saw the look on his face. ‘What. What is it?’
    He went to her and gently led her to a chair, holding both her hands as he told her quietly, ‘There is bad news, Ellie. The
Titanic
has sunk with a terrible loss of life.’ He kept hold of her hands, and watched her as she struggled to assimilate what he had said.
    â€˜The
Titanic
… But no! That can’t be true! She’s unsinkable! It was in the papers! She cannot have sunk … Connie is on board her!’ Ellie protested pathetically, before catching her breath and denying frantically, ‘No, Gideon! No! No!’ Shocked tears streaming down her face, Ellie turned to him. ‘There will be survivors though, surely?’ she begged.
    Gideon felt the pity grip his throat. Connie had been a steerage passenger, but he couldn’t bring himself to remind Ellie of this, and take her hope away from her. But something in his expression must have betrayed him because suddenly she demanded, ‘You think that she’s dead, don’t you?
    Oh, Gideon! This is all my fault! I should have done more for her, Gideon. If I had she would never …’
    Gideon was not going to allow that!
    â€˜Ellie, you have nothing to blame yourself for,’ he assured her immediately. ‘Connie was always headstrong and wilful, and you did your best for her.’
    â€˜The family will have to be told,’ Ellie whispered, as though she hadn’t heard him.
    â€˜I shall do everything that is necessary,’ Gideon assured her.
    â€˜She might have survived. There will be survivors, won’t there, Gideon?’ Ellie repeated helplessly. ‘Such a new modern liner, there would have been lifeboats and …’
    Gideon said nothing. According to the papers there had not been enough lifeboats to hold all the passengers, and those travelling steerage, like Connie, would have had the least chance of surviving.
    As tears filled Ellie’s eyes, Gideon took her in his arms. ‘I’ll get young John round here, aye, and send a message to your father as well. And your ma’s family – the posh lot – will have to be told, I