Wishing Water Read Free Page A

talk about it,’ she said with a smile. ‘When you are old enough to understand.’  
    ‘I’m old enough now. I’m eleven. Not a baby any more, Meg.’  
    No, more’s the pity, she thought, and tightened the ribbons that were, as usual, slipping down the glossy curls. ‘It isn’t important, not really. You have me and Tam. Remember that we love you. You are our own darling child so far as we are concerned.’  
    ‘I know.’ Lissa wished that it was enough. But somehow it wasn’t.
     
    Larkrigg Hall, a rectangular, solid house, bigger than it looked at first glance, with a plain, protestant look to it, stood at last before them. Only its tall trefoiled windows and great arched storm porch relieved the austerity of the grey stone walls. Meg pushed Lissa forward and politely rattled the knocker, for the inhabitants of Larkrigg Hall did not follow the more usual country custom of using the back door for callers. Meg could feel her heart start to thump uncomfortably at the thought of Kath waiting within.
    The door creaked open and Amy Stanton, Rosemary Ellis’s housekeeper, stood four-square on the slate step. Solid and forbidding, taking her pleasures where she could find them in ill health and local disasters, she almost smiled upon them now.
    ‘She hasn’t come,’ she bluntly informed them. ‘Mrs Wadeson sent a telegram this morning. She says she’s sorry but she won’t be here after all.’  
    The door had almost closed before Meg came out of her shock. Slamming her hand against the polished panels she stopped it most effectively, but then she hadn’t spent years lifting and managing sheep to be put off by an old door, solid oak or no. ‘What did you say?’  
    Meg lifted her chin in that stubborn way she had and the high-cheekboned face took on a dignified beauty that had melted stouter hearts than Amy Stanton’s. There was no sign of a thaw in this one.
    Even to Lissa’s miserable observation it was clear that Meg was wasting her time.
    ‘Amy?’ A stentorian voice from within settled the matter and the door shut fast with a solid clunk. Meg muttered something unpleasant under her breath that Lissa didn’t quite catch then, taking her hand in a firm grasp, grey eyes sparkling with a rare anger, she set off at a cracking pace back down the long drive, dragging the child with her.
    ‘Come along, sweetheart. Let’s go home.’
     
    It was Grandfather Joe, surprisingly, who offered a solution. Following that bitter disappointment, Lissa had written again to her mother, asking if Kath had another date in mind. The letter had not been answered. Not that she cared, she told herself. What did it matter if Katherine Ellis, now Mrs Wadeson, did not love her?
    Yet somehow it did. It mattered very much. Lissa felt full of curiosity, ached to meet her. Not because she felt herself unloved by Meg, far from it. Meg had been the best mother anyone could wish for. It was simply a need to fill in the whole picture, to know who, exactly, she was. She couldn’t explain it any better than that, not even to herself. It made her feel all uncomfortable inside to know she’d been dumped.
    ‘What’s up with thee, moping about with a face like a wet fortnight? Stop fretting,’ he said, shaking out his newspaper as if to remind her that the worries of the world, such as the progress of the Korean War which he followed with great interest, were far more important than any a young girl might have. ‘It’ll all be t’same in hundred years.’  
    ‘I suppose it will,’ said Lissa sadly, though this was not a philosophy she could warm to. ‘Do you believe in wishes, Grandfather?’
    Joe pondered the question then chuckled. ‘I remember doing some wishing as a child, by the water every spring. Eeh, what daft-heads we were.’ Laughing softly at his own youthful foolishness, he returned to the paper. ‘Will thee look at the price of wool? Might as well work for nowt.’
    ‘Grandfather.’ Lissa’s voice was