A Girl Can Dream Read Free Page A

do nothing to bring Maeve back, but I know that she will do her best to slip into her place.’
    Meg could have told her father that the two red spots in May’s cheeks were a bad sign; it showed she was in a temper and she proved this as she rounded on him. ‘Little Ruth, if she should survive, deserves the same care as your other children. She is not like a parcel left at the hospital because it is not convenient to have at home. She is a child, your child, and every child should ideally be with their family.’
    Charlie looked morose and sighed heavily while May leaned forward and squeezed Meg’s hand. ‘You are a grand girl, Meg, but only a girl yet. If you want anything, anything at all, you know where I am.’
    ‘I know,’ Meg said in a low voice. ‘And I am grateful. You were a good friend to my mother.’
    ‘I was very fond of her,’ May said with a slight catch in her voice. ‘It was no hardship.’
    ‘Even so,’ Meg said. ‘If only Dad …’
    ‘He’ll come round,’ May said in little more than a whisper. ‘You’ll see. Time is a great healer and meanwhile you have something to tell the others that might cheer them a little.’
    Meg nodded and they parted at the Halletts’ door. Once inside, Father Hugh said Maeve’s parents must be informed of their daughter’s death and the birth of Ruth, and advised Meg to send them a telegram the following morning.
    ‘But Mom didn’t really get on with her parents,’ Meg told him.
    ‘And how do you know that they are not sorry for that now?’ the priest asked. ‘Maybe they regret any harsh words spoken.’
    ‘Whether they are sorry or not,’ Charlie said, ‘her parents must be told about Maeve’s death. I would be failing in my duty if I didn’t tell them. Isn’t that right, Father?’
    ‘Yes, Charlie,’ the priest said. ‘And Maeve was once telling me that she had family in America.’
    ‘Yes, three brothers and a sister,’ Charlie said. ‘Better send telegrams to them too, Meg.’
    Meg nodded. She didn’t mind sending telegrams to those in the States, for her mother used to write to them regularly and the letters they sent back often made her smile. She would read snippets out to them all. Meg knew much more about them than she did about her maternal grandparents. Still, if they had to be told, then that was that.
    Now she put it out of her mind and concentrated instead on what she was to tell the children about their little sister. They were a sad little bunch, and Meg’s heart went out to them all. When she told them of their tiny wee sister fighting for her life in the hospital, they made no sign that they had even heard her. A small, frail baby was little consolation for their mother, who had been taken from them so suddenly. Meg, dealing with this loss herself, felt suddenly dispirited.
    When a knock came on the door a while later, she wondered who it could be; for few neighbours knocked in that area.
    ‘Miss Carmichael,’ she exclaimed with all the eagerness she could muster. Miss Carmichael had been Meg’s teacher at school; Meg had loved her with a passion and worked hard to please, so achieving higher marks than anyone in her leaving exams. Meg knew Miss Carmichael had visited her parents to ask them if she could stay on at school longer, but she knew her father, like many, regarded education for women as worthless, and that her parents would expect her to earn wages as soon as possible.
    Kate Carmichael noticed that the wan smile did not reach Meg’s large, dark eyes, which were glazed with misery. Normally teachers were excluded from the inner circle of gossip, but news that Maeve Hallett was very ill and about to give birth prematurely had filtered through. When Meg told her what had happened since, she was shocked to the core.
    She knew that Meg would have to step into her mother’s place and the thought that her life would be stunted before it had really begun saddened the young teacher. She sensed that now Meg needed