Second-chance romance

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Spotlight on “Maggie’s Wheelbarrow” in Merry Belles

Maggie’s Wheelbarrow, by Jude Knight

Maggie hasn’t heard from her husband Will in more than a year—not since he marched out of Spain with his regiment. When she and the children followed him, the battles were over and his regiment was gone. Letters have brought no answers. With all her worldly goods and her son in a wheelbarrow, and her daughter on her back, Maggie sets off from Portsmouth to walk to the Midlands to find out what has happened to Will.

Will Parker has been invalided out of the army. The scars and the limp he has as souvenirs of the Battle of Toulouse are not the worst of it. He also left behind two years of memories. Back home with his mother, he is building a new life. But what is it he is forgetting? 

Meet Will Parker

Will Parker has nearly recovered from battle injuries received more than a year ago, but a blow to his head left a two-year gap in his memory. Invalided out of the army, he lives quietly with his mother and earns his living as a clerk. Deep inside he is restless, as if he yearns something he doesn’t know he has lost.

Meet Maggie Parker

Maggie Parker is determined to take her baby daughter and her little son to their father’s family, though she is not certain where in the Midlands he lives. She buys a wheelbarrow in Portsmouth, puts into it her baggage and her son, and sets out with her daughter on her back to walk as many hundreds of miles as are needed.

Excerpt from Maggie’s Wheelbarrow

Will has just read a letter from the wife he did not know he had. He has read it out loud, and he is surprised at his mother’s reaction.

While he was reading, he was aware of his mother sinking into another chair, but he had not looked directly at her. He did now.

Her eyes were filled with tears but she was smiling. “Thank God,” she said. “I have been so worried.”

“You knew I had a wife and you didn’t tell me?” Will couldn’t help but feel betrayed.

“What could I say, Will?” his mother asked. “You had forgotten them, and I had no idea what had become of them. Had she deserted you? Had they all died? How would it have helped to tell you what little I knew?”

She scrambled to her feet and pulled out a drawer on the kitchen dresser. She handed him a package tied with ribbon. “Here. Here are your letters. When you’ve read them, you’ll know as much about your wife as I do. Oh, my dear son, perhaps when you see her you will remember everything.”

Or perhaps not. What would he do if he didn’t know this wife of his? A thought occurred to him. “Margaret. Not… No, it couldn’t be… I didn’t marry Maggie Finch, did I? Sergeant Finch’s daughter?”

Ma nodded. “That’s it. Are you remembering, Will?” She sounded hopeful.

He shook his head. “Not from after Ciudad Rodrigo. From before. She… I doubt there was a man in the regiment who was not at least a little in love with Maggie Finch. Not that any of us would risk the sergeant’s reaction if we showed her the least disrespect!”

He could feel his lips spreading in a grin as he remembered the cheerful pretty daughter of the formidable soldier. “I married Maggie Finch!”

“So, I should hope, Will Parker, since you had two children by her,” said Ma, rather sharply. “Go and wash up for dinner, lad. You can read your letters after.”

Will obediently got to his feet. Maggie Finch. Maggie Parker, now, and wandering the Midlands with his two children in tow. Wandering where? He checked the date and location at the top of the letter. It was dated two weeks ago, and she was not here yet. She had included a village name, as well, and he knew it. Not more than thirty miles hence, but he supposed a woman with two children might travel slowly. On the other hand, perhaps she was heading for a different Ashton.

As he washed his hands and face, he pictured her out in the cold and the rain and shuddered. He hoped she had found somewhere safe and warm to wait out the storm. She and the little ones.

He had a powerful urge to race out the door and start searching for them. In the dark and the rain, it would be pointless. Possibly even dangerous. He would leave in the morning, once it was light, riding in the direction of the village she had left weeks ago.

 

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A change is as good as a rest in WIP Wednesday

In Maggie’s Wheelbarrow, which is my contribution to Merry Belles, the next Bluestocking Belles Christmas Collection, my heroine takes a job at a house party.

The hope of soon being reunited with Will, or at least reaching his mother, had kept Maggie moving along the winding roads from Portsmouth to the first village of Ashton in the Midlands. When that proved to be the wrong place, she changed her strategy. Winter was coming. Even now, the heat was gone from the long evenings as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon. If she had to find lodgings for herself and the children during the winter, then she must make more than the few coins she had picked up on her way north.

Having made the decision between one village and the next, she put it into practice at the first opportunity, asking at both inns and the three major houses if there was any work available.

One of the inns took her on to clean rooms and empty slop pails. For one week, she told them. After that, she said, she must be off once more on her search. With Eva on her back and Billy tagging behind, she managed the heavy work with ease, and a week later set off the next Ashton with several more shillings in her purse and a warmer coat for each child to keep them comfortable in the sometimes-cold wind.

The second Ashton was as disappointing as the first, but Maggie got two night’s work at the inn, and moved on the third. Thus it went through the autumn and on into early winter. When the snow came, she would have to be settled, but meanwhile, she moved from village to village, stopping to work whenever her money ran low, and at every village called Ashton or something similar, asking for the Parker family. All to no avail.

She was between Ashtons in early December when, on the strength of a stint as a maid at yet another inn, she was offered temporary work at the local great house, where they needed extra servants during a house party. At first, she thought she’d have to turn the job down, though the wages were excellent. But another woman overheard her telling the hiring steward about her children.

“I reckon they could stay with Ma,” she said. “She’s looking after me own young uns, while I earn a few coins, so two more wouldn’t matter to her none, and she could do with the pennies.” The woman introduced herself as Frannie, and offered to take Maggie to visit “Ma” immediately.

“If she could put you up at night,” said the steward, “I shall add two shillings a day to the wages, for where I could find you a bed, I do not know. Mind you, you’ll have to be at your post by five in the morning, and will not be home until after the guests have had their dinner.”

Frannie’s mother proved to be a kind woman whom Eva took to straight away, and the other children were twins of Billy’s age, so Maggie went off to work the following morning with a light heart. If she saw out the two weeks of the house party, she would earn the princely sum of eighteen shillings! Four shillings of that would go Frannie’s mother, but fourteen shillings would feed her little family for weeks, if she was careful.

It was hard work, but in some ways, it was also a holiday. No walking for hours with Eva on her back and the wheelbarrow before her. No need to find dry spaces through the day to feed the children or to change a wet clout. And she enjoyed the walks with Frannie in the pre-dawn quiet and the velvet dark of the late evening.