Christmas Child: an absolutely heartbreaking and emotional Victorian romance Read online

  Christmas Child

  Victorian Saga Romance

  Carol Rivers

  Newsletter

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  For Sister Patricia and the Handmaids

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Epilogue

  Reviews

  Newsletter

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Excerpt of Christmas to Come

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Also by Carol Rivers

  More Books

  Prologue

  Poplar, East London

  Christmas Day, 1880

  Snow fell in silent showers, settling peacefully on the cobbles of the lane as Colleen O’Reilly dragged herself over the carpet of white. Behind her, drops of blood, as red as summer cherries, melted into the snow.

  Colleen didn’t care that she was bleeding. Nor that her boots barely had soles, or that the ragged shawl around her thin shoulders provided little warmth. She was beyond caring. All that mattered was her baby. Miraculously the infant had survived her premature birth. Cutting her own cord with the rusting shears Colleen had found in the brewery’s backyard, had left her weak. Colleen knew her life’s blood was seeping away.

  Once again, she gazed lovingly at her child. The baby’s lips were blue with cold. ‘Live my darlin’ girl,’ she pleaded. ‘Live for your mother’s sake.’

  The tiny eyes flickered. Her baby was still breathing. But Colleen knew her own time was short in the world. To preserve this new life, she had torn up her petticoats and wrapped them around the tiny body. But what use were rags in such weather? The distance between the brewery where she had sheltered to give birth, and the convent walls, was but a stone’s throw. Yet, with little milk in her breasts, her baby would surely die if not from the cold, then from hunger.

  Pain clawed at Colleen’s stomach. An internal agony raked her insides. ‘Don’t take me yet, sweet Jesus. Give me strength to deliver this innocent into the safety of the nuns’ hands.’

  Colleen plodded on as the ice-cold snow froze her feet. Now there was only one place she could go, for Colleen O’Reilly knew she was clinging to life for the sake of her child.

  If only she had been a regular churchgoer! But in the months of her belly swelling she had been ashamed. The nuns would surely ask about her condition. And how could she tell them the truth? About her long journey as a girl from Ireland to the shores of England. From the famine of her own country to a richer one – or so she had thought.

  ‘London’s streets are paved with gold,’ she had heard promised.

  Now she knew better. She dared not think of, much less voice, the degradation she had fallen into. The first man said he loved her but sold her into slavery. She had been used for men’s gratification, until a new life had formed in her belly. It was then she had found the courage to escape. She would never let her child suffer in the same way.

  ‘Not long now, my sweet,’ she coaxed, her rheumy eyes fixed on the way ahead. With every last ounce of her strength, she trudged on through the snow.

  The grey walls surrounding the Sisters of Clemency Convent were tall and forbidding. But this morning, as the congestive fluid filled Colleen’s lungs, she remembered the secret entrance beyond the closed gates. And it was here she would enter her little girl into God’s house. Before it was too late, she would throw herself on the mercy of her faith.

  Colleen stumbled to the place that she had discovered a week ago. Hidden behind holly bushes, the brick was crumbling. Late at night she had gone to loosen more of the stones and artfully replace them. Instinct told her to hurry.

  Though she’d heard that the orphanage was already full, the nuns could not ignore the cries of a baby. They would not guess that such a shining treasure was the offspring of a whore, a destitute. So, it was through the hole in the wall she would go.

  Please God love her just one more time. Until she had found safety for her darlin’ child.

  Chapter 1

  Part One

  Exiled

  Thirteen-year-old Henrietta O’Reilly pushed aside a lock of curling copper-coloured hair from her eyes and shivered. The icy water in the big china basin where she toiled was freezing; her fingers were numb to the bone. Yet, after a hard morning’s laundering, there was still so much to do.

  ‘A labour of love,’ so Sister Patrick regularly assured her. ‘You’ll be fitting those curling tresses of yours into a halo before long.’

  The thought of a halo appealed to Ettie, as she was known by the nuns. All the saints looked radiant in the pictures hanging on the convent walls. Their holy images with auras of gold inspired her. But it was hard to conjure a smile in the ancient orphanage laundry. Draughts as strong as storms rushed in from the broken windows. The mucky steam dampened her clothes. The air smelled strongly of soap and starch, and made her eyes sting.

  Not that she minded, for having spent all her life in the care of the Sisters of Clemency, Ettie considered the orphanage her home. Hidden away in the hamlet of Poplar, East London, it was rare that she ever ventured beyond the high stone walls of the convent.

  Sister Patrick was her favourite nun and though she had lived many years in England, she still spoke with her native Irish accent. It was Sister Patrick who, on her way to chapel on Christmas Day fourteen years ago had discovered the dying Colleen O’Reilly.

  ‘Sure, t’was a heartbreaking sight,’ Sister Patrick had related many times. ‘The ic
e was hanging sharp as knives from the eaves of the laundry. The snow was banked knee-high. I couldn’t believe me eyes when I saw a tiny figure, fallen against the laundry wall. And there you were, safe in the wee girl’s arms, a tiny speck of life. With the last of her strength, your mother was keeping you warm against her breast. Wrapped only in filthy rags, she was in no fit state to help herself – let alone her baby.’

  ’Where is she now?’ Ettie had asked when she was small.

  ‘The good Lord called her to be his angel.’

  ‘Is she an angel now?’

  ‘She’s a Dublin angel for sure,’ Sister Patrick assured her. ‘Colleen O’Reilly, Jesus rest her soul, was from the land of shamrocks just like me. She was born in a road I know well meself called Henrietta Street and she named you after it. Though saints preserve us, we all got lazy and know you as our darlin’ Ettie.’

  Ettie never tired of listening to Sister Patrick’s explanations of her heritage. It gave her great comfort to know that Sister Patrick and her mother were so closely connected and that Dublin was the city of her mother’s birth. ‘What did she look like, Sister Patrick? Was she pretty?’

  ‘Ah, as pretty as a picture she was, just like yourself. A replica. Rich brown hair and eyes the very same shade as God’s own soil. And her countenance, well, it might have lit up the whole convent if she’d lived.’

  ‘Did she really love me?’

  At this, Sister Patrick would look astonished. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, child, why wouldn’t she? You were her very own miracle.’

  ‘Will I ever see her again?’ Ettie persisted, having studied her catechism sufficiently to believe in miracles.

  ‘Without a doubt,’ Sister Patrick would reply. ‘Don’t we all rest in the arms of our Blessed Saviour and his angels?’

  This answer rarely varied. Ettie never felt lonely because she knew her mother was with her. Sometimes she even thought she could see her holy aura lighting up a dark corner. As time went on, this knowledge was sufficient for Ettie to recover from any sadness she might have felt at being orphaned.

  Ettie considered the nuns her family. Like a young duckling, wherever the sisters went, Ettie followed too. At a very early age, she would wait outside the chapel door while they said their office. She understood that praying hard for the orphans was the most important duty of their day.

  Later, Ettie's little figure could be seen trotting after the line of black habits into the kitchen where she would be ordered from pillar to post, carrying and fetching. Any help was welcomed by the nuns; who somehow managed to run a convent, an orphanage and a schoolroom at the same time.

  Every day, at early morning Mass, Ettie knelt on the polished pews of the chapel. Here, she thanked God for giving her such a happy life. Best of all she liked helping the waifs, strays and foundlings who turned up at the doors of the convent orphanage. Just as she had.

  A wistful smile came to Ettie's sweet face as she thought of the many children who had passed through the ranks. The nuns made sure that their charges learned the alphabet and their numbers. Some rebelled at first. But not for long. It gradually dawned on them that life in the orphanage was much happier than on the streets. Even if they had to learn the catechism, it was worth their efforts.

  As Ettie undid the cords of the wooden ceiling rack, she reflected on her hopes for the future. She wanted to become like Sister Patrick and all the nuns and dedicate her life to children. Her ambition was like a rosy glow inside her; she woke up with it each morning and went to sleep with it at night. Sister Patrick always encouraged her. ‘For sure, you are a fine scholar, so you are. Sister Bernadette has taught you a little French, and you’ve learned your numbers from Sister Catherine. If I didn’t know better, I’d say meself you were an old soul.’

  ‘What’s an old soul, Sister Patrick?’

  ‘Someone who’s walked this earth before,’ answered the nun mysteriously. ‘But no more questions now. Me tired brain can only stretch so far.’

  Lowering the clothes pulley, Ettie began to fold the wet wimples and caps over the long wooden struts. With great care she made certain each one was flat. The ironing afterwards, so Ettie had discovered, was easier if the white headdresses were prepared properly. She knew this was another labour of love and would be rewarded by God.

  A gentle voice broke into Ettie's reflections. A raffia basket overflowing with dirty clothes landed on the table. The smiling, unlined face above it belonged to Sister Patrick.

  ‘Ettie, we still have the children's smocks to wash. Mother Superior will inspect us soon.’ The nun removed her small, round wire pince-nez, which were fogged up due to the moist heat of the room and squinted at the newly rinsed articles. ‘Ah, so the wee girl is ahead of me!’

  Ettie beamed, for she loved to please. Her training over the years had made her a conscientious worker. After a full day's housekeeping, she went to the schoolroom to help the children most in need. Whenever a pupil struggled in lessons, they were sent to Ettie. She would spend many hours with them, teaching in her own childlike way all the lessons that the nuns had taught her.

  Although Ettie was given Sunday afternoon to herself, she rarely took it. Rather she would help children like seven-year-old Kathy Squires. Kathy was a street beggar who had never attended school until she arrived at the orphanage. And Johnny Dean, who at eleven, had been boxed round the ears so many times by his drunken mother, that he was a bit deaf. At six years old, Megan and Amy were twins and had spent most of their young lives thieving. They refused to be parted and even slept head to toe in their bed.

  Then there was Michael Wilson, the most unruly and disobedient orphan of them all. A year older than Ettie, he was a rebel. All his young life he had lived off his wits. At first, he refused to even look at a book or hold a pencil. And, as for a bible or a catechism, he would declare them poisonous.

  But Ettie had patiently appealed to his better nature. She found this in his love for adventure stories; of Daniel who was thrown into a den of lions. Or, Noah who defied a flood and David who had conquered a giant.

  ‘Can’t be true,’ Michael had at first argued. ‘A lion would eat you in one gulp. You’d never get all those animals on a boat. It would sink. And a giant would crush you under his foot.’

  ‘Believe what you like,’ replied Ettie, unoffended. ‘God gave these men special strength. There are women, too. Like Joan of Arc who fought in battle, as brave as any man. Look, here’s a picture of her wearing armour and sitting astride a horse.’ She showed him the pages of the old and musty book. Like all the books that had stood on the convent’s library shelves for many years.

  Michael had studied the image with interest. Ettie knew that she had gained his approval. From that moment on, she read him stories of heroic action and adventure. One thing led to another and Michael decided to learn to read in order to investigate for himself.

  Ettie came back to the present as Sister Patrick examined the caps and wimples.

  ‘Not a crease among them,’ she congratulated. ‘What would I do without you?’

  Ettie habitually answered, ‘You won't ever have to, Sister Patrick. I'll always be here.’

  Mostly Sister Patrick’s response was the same, too. ‘I pray to Our Blessed Lady that you will.’ But today, the nun's face clouded. She fiddled with her spectacles and played nervously with the wooden rosary looped at her waist. ‘Ettie, come away to the dining room. It’s time we talked.’

  Chapter 2

  ‘Have I done something wrong?’ Ettie enquired.

  ‘No, child. But the sooner you learn the truth the better.’

  Ettie hurried after the small, squat figure striding over the convent’s stone floors. Finally, they reached the dining room. All the long wooden tables and benches were permanently set with cutlery, mugs and pitchers of water for the nuns' simple meals.

  Ettie kept this room as clean as a new pin. Sweeping the stone flags, polishing the table and lighting the fire on cold winter mornings was another labour
of love. Once breakfast was over, Ettie and two young women employed from the local village would clean the children's dormitories and tend to the sick.

  Sister Patrick sat down on one of the benches. Ettie felt anxious. The vast room echoed with an eerie silence. The strong smell of wax polish wafted up into the air. A smoky haze from the fire curled around the roof's lofty ceilings.

  It was late on a winter's afternoon and Ettie moved restlessly. The boys and girls would be waiting for her. She loved her little friends and they loved her. For they all knew from life's experience what it was like to be unloved.

  But Sister Patrick was in no hurry to let her go. ‘Ettie, nothing in life is permanent, so?’