Wildflower Hill Read Online Free PDF Page B

hiding her swollen belly. Ma kicked the door closed behind her, strode over, and snatched the towel away. Then she grasped Beattie’s hands in hers roughly and spread them apart.
    “Ma . . .”
    Her eyes traveled Beattie’s body from throat to thighs, thenshe dropped her daughter’s hands and finally looked at her face.
    “Ma, I’m sorry,” Beattie said, but she saw no pity in her mother’s eyes. Just panic.
    “You have to go.”
    “No! Ma, don’t throw me out.”
    “Your father must never know. The shame. The
shame.
” Ma’s hands flapped like trapped birds. “Get dressed. Go.”
    Beattie gathered her towel against her, heart thudding in her throat. “I’ve nowhere to go.”
    “I dinna care!” Ma’s voice was growing hysterical. “Your father will die for shame. He’ll never get another decent job if it’s known his daughter is a . . . a . . .” Ma couldn’t find the words, descended into noisy coughing.
    “But I—”
    Beattie’s protests were cut short by a sharp slap to her face. She stared up at her mother, who was wild-eyed.
    “Ma?” Tears in her eyes. She flailed to catch Ma’s hands, but she pulled them away sharply.
    “No,” Ma said. “Leave me be. Things are hard enough.”
    A small shred of memory came back to her then. Ma brushing her hair before school one morning, snow outside the window, Ma’s warm hands, Ma’s quavering voice singing an old Scottish folk song. The memory contrasted so sharply with this moment that Beattie’s stomach lurched as though she might throw up. “You can’t do this,” she gasped. “I’m your daughter.”
    “No,” she said grimly. “You’re not. We have no daughter.”
    *  *  *
     
    On the street, the air was thick and oily. Beattie was dressed, had the purse her mother had flung at her in the stairwell, but was otherwise empty-handed as she hurried away from the tenement block. A few streets away, she stopped. Her pulse fluttered as she paused, unsure which way to turn. To Henry’s office, to plead with him? To Granny’s house in Tannochside, with its sodden back garden that grew more moss than grass? Or to the warmest, driest alley she could find to prepare herself for her final ruin? For long, horrible minutes she stood, and it was as though she could feel the world turning, feel her own tenuous perch on it.
    There was only one person she could think of who might know what to do. Cora.
    Beattie had never been to Cora’s house, though she knew where it was. Henry had pointed it out to her one night when walking her home. A honey-colored sandstone townhouse on Woodlands Terrace. Cora’s father was a shipping magnate, with a country estate as well. Beattie tried not to think about what it would be like to have two houses instead of one tiny, cramped flat. To have a father who provided for her.
    Beattie was panting by the time she arrived, and she stopped at the bottom of the wide stairs to catch her breath. She hadn’t even realized she’d been running. The morning sun had broken through clouds and was evaporating last night’s rain from the road. In the park, the birds were in full chorus. Beattie waited for her heart to still, palmed her tear-stained face, then walked up and rang the bell.
    The heavy door creaked open. An imperious face under a frilly white cap peered out at her.
    “Yes, lassie?” the old woman said.
    “Can I see Cora?”
    The woman—Beattie assumed she was a housekeeper—arched an eyebrow. “Who are you?”
    “My name’s Beattie. I’m her friend. Please. I just need to talk to her for a few minutes.”
    “Wait here,” the housekeeper said, then closed the door.
    Time passed. It felt like hours but was probably ten minutes. Traffic noise in the distance: the day starting as normal for everyone else. Beattie started to think she had been forgotten. Then the door opened again, and Cora stood there.
    “Lordy, Beattie Blaxland. It’s only nine in the morning.”
    “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t wake