The Lost Girl from Far Away

Book 0: Hilda House

by Elizabeth Gill

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

The heartbreaking new novel from the author of An Orphan's Wish.

Having recently arrived in England, abandoned by her father and brother, Isabella is left to look after her dying mother in an abandoned house. When the worst happens, she suddenly finds herself alone in a strange country, forced to seek out help from strangers in the nearby town.

Sarah doesn't know what to do with the poor little girl she's found, orphaned and afraid, except bring her back to Hilda House where they can stay together. But when she discovers the girl's connection to Wolsingham, Sarah knows she'll do whatever it takes to keep Isabella safe from the tragedy of her family's past.

As the lives of the townspeople become increasingly entwined, will they find a way to come together? Or will they fall apart under the past that haunts them all?

Release date: January 18, 2024

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 400

Sample

One

1910

The Durham Felltops, Northern England

Isabella de Leon wanted to go home. She longed for a place that was as different from the fells of north-­west Durham as it could possibly be. Her home was a land of almost constant sunshine, of friends and fish and fruit, a place where she had been a happy small child with family all around her: the tiny village of Los Abrigos on the southern coast of Tenerife in the Canary Islands off the coast of West Africa, where the winds blew in from the Sahara and the sun sank slowly in a fiery ball. The Red Mountain, an ancient volcano on the southern edge of the island, stood just beyond the village and could be seen from her home. She had thought when she was very small that the mountain had the power to grant her wishes. It was said that when Magellan sailed there in 1519 on his voyage around the world, he had called it the most beautiful place on earth. She had thought that she would live there all her life with her mother and father and her brother, Nico.

Her first memory was of being outside on Christmas Eve, when all the families had a big meal and before it, as her mother toiled in the kitchen, her father had taken her outside to see the sunset. The sun set in winter at about six in the evening and, just before it vanished, it sparkled gold in the sky and then disappeared beyond the mountain. Then, he had said to her, ‘But wait, my most precious girl, because the best will come soon.’

She grew impatient, small as she was, but he lifted her into his arms and held her safely against him. Then, after she thought that night would darken quickly, there was a pause, which lasted for a long time to a tiny girl but was probably only a few minutes, and suddenly amidst the darkness there was light, pink and blue, very pale and two stars, one low and one high. Her father pointed them out to her and he said, ‘Do not forget my little one, that you come from the most beautiful place on earth. Be proud.’

He had been right. It was as perfect a home as anybody had ever seen. The men in the village fished, the women kept house and looked after the gardens and orchards and animals, and the children ran freely, except on Sunday mornings, when they made their way to the little church where they had been baptized and since then had attended every Sunday along with all their families.

She would never forget the day that her life changed forever, when a wind bearing red sand had come across the Atlantic Ocean and brought with it a storm. To begin with, all it did was enshrine the village in fog. Her uncle and two cousins had already gone out in the boat that morning. The fog gave way to the biggest storm in the island’s history and the three men were lost.

After that all her father wanted to do was leave. Her mother also, but they had different goals in mind and argued more than usual. That was bad enough, all the shouting and her mother throwing what was left of the pots she had not thrown at her husband the last time they had an argument, but in the end her father had decided to take her mother to her family home, leave her there and go on to Canada, the place he had always dreamed of.

Her mother’s home was here in Weardale. Isabella’s parents had met when her father had been a sailor in his young days and her mother had been a maid in a big house in Newcastle upon Tyne. His ship had come in and his heart had gone out, that was how he remembered it, but there was nothing left of the romance.

Her mother had wanted to go home when her father talked of leaving Los Abrigos and she had cried. Isabella found it hard to imagine anybody wanting to return to this bleak, freezing and desolate place in the middle of nowhere.

They had made their way overland to here after a long sea journey and the weather had got worse and worse. Everything was cold and wet and there was fog too and her father had lost the way as he tried to find her mother’s home and family.

Her mother was angry by then and tired, for she was about to have another child and badly needed to lie down. They had ended up in this huge old house, which stood alone at the head of a deserted village.

They were grateful enough to have reached shelter and had huddled here inside the walls, hoping that the rain would stop and the wind would not cut you in half as you tried to go forward.

Come morning, the storm had passed and her father did his best to make up the fire. It was not usually his job and in the end Isabella pushed him away and gently took over the building of the fire. At least it was something to do and warmth was the first thing they needed.

Isabella could not meet his eyes because he kept going to the window and she knew he was going to say that he would not stay for much longer, it was time to move on.

She was hoping that the fog would never lift so he couldn’t leave but it was going, leaving a cold, wet land behind it. Canada beckoned, that was what he told them. Every day he talked of it as paradise. He kept his mind on his goal and would not give up the idea. Isabella knew that her mother had hoped they all would stay here but she had learned better.

Her mother, after many previous births, was about to go into labour once again. She had lost more children than Isabella could remember but had never seemed any worse for it. At the moment, she was sitting up on the old sofa not far from the fire, taking from the small blaze the little warmth that it gave to her hands as she declared, as she had done so many times before, that she would go no further, not one more step. Isabella knew that her father no longer cared. He had taken her home, he had fulfilled his promise and now he longed to be gone.

Isabella began to look forward to him leaving. Her parents had been fighting her whole life. Sometimes she wondered why on earth they had got married. The trouble was that they were too much alike. The fighting was an integral part of their lives, and perhaps it provided some kind of excitement which the fishing village and their lives there had lacked.

The fighting had meant that Isabella and Nico were very quiet. There was no room for their voices in their parents’ house. Now had come the moment she had initially feared, the anger wanted to explode from her but it would do no good. If he must go, why delay it? She couldn’t stand much more.

‘I’ve done what I said I would do,’ her father said, his voice level. ‘I’ve brought you home. The place you were born and brought up is but a few miles away and you can go nowhere until that child is born. Then you’ll be able to walk the short distance. Your family will be bound to take you in.’

Her mother said nothing. Isabella concentrated on keeping the fire alive. Her father gave her all the money that he said he could spare and all the food he had, which did not amount to much, and then he urged Nico out of the door. Nico hesitated and Isabella began to understand why nobody was looking at anybody else. They could not. Nico stood there, glanced at her and then he followed his father. Such had always been the plan but now that it was happening, Isabella could not believe that her father and brother would go. She waited for Nico to change his mind and come back but nothing happened.

‘But, Papa, what will they do?’ Thirteen-­year-­old Nicolas de Leon turned to his father, at a loss.

Sebastian dismissed his wife and daughter with a nod. ‘Will you come with me, Nicolas? There will be so many opportunities.’

Nico glanced at his sister and mother before he left the house. His father was right, his mother would give birth shortly and after that she would be well. She always was.

‘I have been a good husband to her, you know it, but I could never belong in such a place and neither, I think, could you.’

‘But Isabella—’

‘She is like her mother. She will find a home here. She even looks like her mother, has the same ideas and needs.’

Nico knew that Isabella was a disappointment to his father. She was, for a start, fair-­haired and green-­eyed, whereas he looked like his father, dark and Spanish, though he was not. Spaniards came from so many places with so many different cultures and all of them proud, but he would not contradict his father. Isabella belied her name in that sense to his father and yet there were a good many people on their home island of Tenerife who were blond and blue­ or green ­eyed. Invaders had come from many different countries over the years and had fathered children there, so that it was very much a mix.

His father was proud that Nico looked like he did, and his father and his father before him.

Their mother, who came from this strange place, had never learned to speak Spanish well and she had never taken up Spanish customs or ideas. She could not, or would not, adjust to the village which was their home. She had always longed to be here. Now she was beginning to realize her dream and at huge cost to his father, he knew.

His father longed for a whole new life and he had done his best by his wife Marianna, or Marian as she was known in England.

‘She’ll be able to travel in a few days. The village below can be no more than half an hour’s walk from here. They will help her since she is one of them.’

His father had a very persuasive tongue and was looking hard and longingly at him. Nico knew that his father loved him very much and that in comparison he loved Isabella very little. It was sad but what could he do?

‘Come with me, my son, and we will have an adventure. We have done our duty.’

It was bitterly cold but since Isabella had sharp ears, he had taken his son outside to talk to him like this. It was high time they were gone.

‘Let me say goodbye,’ Nico ventured.

He kept in mind that his father had wanted to go to Canada as directly as he could. This must have been the biggest diversion that anybody had ever taken and for the sake of someone else. Instead of going straight across the Atlantic, they had come to England, and it had taken such a long time that Nico’s mind clouded whenever he thought of the journey.

They had set off in the autumn, his father hoping to get his family to where they wanted to go before the bad weather arrived. It had also cost his father a lot of money to bring them here and now he had to set off again in winter, which was the worst time of the year to be on a ship. Nico was not looking forward to that and yet he too longed for something new and not a single part of him thought this place had anything to offer him.

He went back inside. The huge house was freezing. The fire had gone out again. The wood was damp, Isabella had said. No one had apparently lived there for some time and although the house still had fuel in an outbuilding, the coal had been outside and was wet. The rooms were filled with furniture, as though people had had to leave quickly or could not take anything with them. Also, there were pots and pans and various kitchen items which he did not recognize. He had never felt less at home and he knew that his father felt the same.

It was true also that the nearest town was but a short walk down the hill, as his father said. No doubt they’d welcome his mother and sister. Why wouldn’t they?

His mother was lying on a big sofa. His sister was trying to relight the fire. She was eleven and knew a great deal about lighting fires, for she did it every day at home and helped her mother in the kitchen with cooking, washing and cleaning.

In some ways he wished they had remained in the village where his father’s family had lived for many generations. Would he ever see it again?

Isabella did not turn from what she was doing. She only acknowledged him with a quiet, ‘So, you’re going then.’

‘I cannot let him go by himself. You’ll be able to walk to the village and probably find Mama’s family there. It will be a homecoming.’

‘Goodbye then.’

‘Goodbye.’

Nico was relieved that his sister made so little fuss. She didn’t move and so he went outside and closed the door behind him. Then he felt better. A new life beckoned. Perhaps the biggest chapter of his existence was about to begin.

Two

After they had eaten once again, Isabella and her mother had nothing left but some bread and cheese, some coffee in a small pack, which smelled good. She had discovered the well outside at the back of the house and a kettle in the cupboards, but the fire was not making enough heat for coffee. When the day cleared and the wind died down, she would make her way to the village. Maybe there would be a shop open and she could get help for her mother, though to be fair, her mother had birthed all her children by herself and had seemed to suffer nothing from it, whether they lived or died. Her mother was tough, she would survive.

It would soon be Christmas. Isabella thought back to the Christmases they had had before, all such joyous times with carol services and midnight mass in the little church just up the street from their house. She missed the children she went to school with and being able to run in and out of the houses around her.

Isabella eventually managed to get the kettle to boil and felt almost triumphant when she was able to hand her mother coffee from one of several pots she had discovered. It gave out warmth and a sweet smell and she was pleased with herself. Her father had brought in fuel, so they would manage, she thought. This all made her feel much better, as though she was coping. What they had they would manage on until the child was born and then they could make their way down to the village and things would be easier.

Her mother was restless at first but as the time went by, she began to groan and moan and it became clear to Isabella that the child was not being born as the others had been, for it was taking a long time. It got worse until her mother was screaming in pain and writhing on the bed. Isabella could not do anything to help.

It was dark outside by then and snow had begun to fall. She went out but the snow came above the top of her shoes and there was no light anywhere. Her father had told her the village was just a short distance away but, as she ventured down from the house, she could see nothing through the blizzard.

She knew that she had to get help. What was this place they were in which was so far from the road?

They had kept walking up on the tops, as far as she could tell or remember now. Her memory was confused by what had happened and the realization that she and her mother were alone here, and she forced herself to think. Isabella tried to give her mother a second cup of weak coffee, but she would take nothing and the pain got worse.

In the end, the following day, as soon as it was light, Isabella left the house and struggled through the snow towards the little town.

The snow was thick and falling fast and sideways. After a while she could not tell whether she was going up or down and all she longed for was to get back to the house where her mother was in such a bad way.

She walked on and on until she couldn’t walk any further. She kept falling over and getting colder and colder and it began to dawn on her that if she couldn’t get up, she would die, so she kept on getting up until she couldn’t do it anymore and then it didn’t matter.

When she awoke, she was very cold but the sky was clear now and she could see everything around her. She got to her feet and there in front of her she saw the house she had left to try and find help. Was this as far as she had got? Had she wandered around in circles?

She went back into the house. The moon shone in through the open roof and she could see where her mother lay and that she was not moving any longer. She could not be dead. Isabella hadn’t seen anybody dead before but her mother still didn’t move and she didn’t respond when Isabella said her name, at firstly softly and then louder.

Suddenly she was afraid and wondered how far her father and Nico had got. Surely they would come back, surely she was not to be left here so alone?

She lay down beside her mother and waited. And grew colder. She made herself believe that it was just a dream, that she would wake up in the morning and they would be back in the sunshine and the warmth of Los Abrigos, with the Atlantic washing the shore just below the house, blue-­green in the sunshine, and all would be well again.

Three

Sarah Charles had lived in Wolsingham for five years after Connie and the rest of the Butler family had left the Hilda House up on the tops. Sarah liked living in Wolsingham with Miss Hutton. The old lady treated her like a grandchild, making lovely frocks for her, feeding her well, and they worked together in the shop, which had been Miss Hutton’s livelihood for as long as anybody could remember.

That December morning when Sarah got up first, as she always did, and made up the fire and put the kettle on to boil for tea, she took a cup to the old lady, only to find that Miss Hutton was no more. She was stiff and cold. Sarah was so shocked and horrified that she could not believe it.

She had no idea what age Miss Hutton was, but she had been very old, to the point where her cheeks sagged and she had to use reading glasses to sew, even in the mornings, and she had become bent and shaky. But Sarah had kept telling herself that Miss Hutton would never die because Sarah could not afford to lose the only person she loved.

Now it had happened. She tried thinking of her many friends in the village but Miss Hutton had been family to her. She didn’t know what to do so she sat on the bed for a while, hoping that she would wake up and the old lady would still be alive, but nothing happened. So she took the cup and saucer downstairs and then banked down the fire, put on her boots and made her way through the fast-­melting snow and across the street to the doctor’s surgery.

She was too early.

‘We’re not open yet,’ Jimmy said. He ran the pharmacy.

Sarah didn’t like Jimmy. Nobody liked Jimmy. He was rude and brushed everybody off, but he had been there for a long time and presumably was good at his job or the doctor would have got rid of him.

‘Miss Hutton died,’ was all Sarah could manage to say.

Jimmy looked at her as though nobody had ever died before and then he left her standing in the hall, went into the gloom at the back of the house and disappeared.

Moments later he came back with Alexander Blair, who was the local doctor. He’d taken over from Dr Neville and for years folk had complained about him because he was nothing like the other man. He came from Edinburgh originally and his clipped tones told of his background.

He had been the doctor further up the dale for some years but had moved here after Dr Neville left. People said it was to make a new start because his wife and youngest child had died and his older children lived in Satley with his wife’s parents.

He did not suffer fools gladly, that was the conclusion of the village when he had been there for a year. By the second year he was accepted and after that, nobody would have got in his way for they were grateful for his skill and understanding.

Also, when you really did have a problem, he could be cool but kind, and Sarah didn’t think a doctor could give you more than that.

‘Now, Sarah,’ he said and he came to her, offering a very small smile. ‘Why don’t we go back to the shop and see what we can do?’

That was exactly what she needed to hear. The doctor put on his coat and boots and followed her the short distance in the snow. Sarah guided him upstairs and then sat in the kitchen.

He was not long.

‘You’re right of course,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry. Why don’t you come back with me and I’ll sort everything out?’

‘Leave the shop?’ Somehow Sarah had the idea that if she left she would not be able to go back there. Whatever would she do?

They locked up, she put the key into her pocket and they walked back to the surgery, but this time they went in through the private side entrance. The doctor’s house was bigger than most, even though it was on the main street. It was not attached as the other houses were and behind it were several buildings including stables, a carriage house and five acres of land for the doctor’s horses. There was also a cottage where Oswald, who looked after the garden, yard and horses, lived with his old mother and Jimmy lodged there too.

Dr Blair took her through into the kitchen where Ada and Fiona, the two maids, were busy. Ada said nothing. She never spoke to Sarah, Sarah realized now, clearly thinking herself well above a lass who had no family. But Fiona sat her down and made tea and sympathized after the doctor told them what had happened before he went.

Now used to the shock, Sarah didn’t listen to what they said but sat there worrying as to her fate. What on earth would she do?

 

The undertaker and the doctor took away Miss Hutton’s body and Sarah returned reluctantly to the shop. She stripped the bed where the old lady had died. It didn’t make her feel any better, but it was something to do. She didn’t open the shop for she was completely lost and could settle to nothing.

Four days later, when it got as light as it was going to, she realized that something else was wrong. Things had been so difficult since Miss Hutton died that she didn’t feel she could handle more problems but as she gazed into the garden from the kitchen window, she thought she could see something unusual moving around.

There were birds and the odd squirrel, but this was bigger. Noiselessly she opened the kitchen door and watched more keenly. There was somebody in the garden. Miss Hutton was lucky to have a garden; many houses had nothing but a backyard. The garden gate was open and somebody small had stepped inside and halted there. It was a half-­grown child, a fair-­haired girl, and Sarah could tell by her stance that she was afraid.

Sarah left the back door open, approached carefully and then she said, ‘Are you all right?’ Clearly there was something very much the matter, woe was pitiful on the child’s pale and anxious face.

‘It is my mother, my mama,’ she said in heavily accented English. ‘She – she has been so very ill and I think she has died. I had to leave her to find help and it took me so very long to get here and I don’t know what to do or how to get back there.’

‘Come inside and I will help you.’

The child was very cold, thin and badly dressed and her eyes were dark with fear. Sarah sat her down by the kitchen fire and asked where she had come from and recognized straight away the description of the house on the tops where this girl had left her mother. The place was very familiar to her. She had escaped her hard life to a better one up there, turning to Connie Butler for help. It was the Hilda House, formally known as Blessed St Hilda’s Orphanage, and probably where she had first felt happiness.

Sarah was obliged to return to the doctor’s house as she thought he would help again. An hour later they were up at the Hilda House. Sarah had not been there in the five years since the Butler family had left. It felt very strange. The doctor would have left the little girl with his servants but she cried so much that in the end they all went together.

The village was just the same, as though time had stood still. The snow was melting and the day was fine. It felt odd but when she saw the Hilda House, she felt a rush of love for the Butler family, remembering how Connie had taken her in when she had run away from the bad treatment of Amos Adams – a minister and a bad man who had brought her in as a small child to work for him.

Sarah had not wanted to go to Newcastle, where Connie’s sister and brothers had settled. Connie would have taken her to London, where she and Thomas Neville had gone, but the dale was home and despite the bad memories she loved it well.

Dr Blair drove the pony and trap himself. He was a man of few words. The locals called him ‘dour’ because of his grave manner but he had proved that he knew what he was doing and the people were confident in his ability to look after them. Sarah was slightly afraid of him but he had been there for her twice in less than a week when she had needed him so she was grateful.

As they got to the front door of the house he said to Sarah, ‘Will you stay with the wee one?’ and when she nodded he added, ‘Don’t worry. Archie will keep still.’

It had not occurred to Sarah that the horse wouldn’t stay where he was. Once the doctor bid folk and horses to do things, they did them. She knew Archie better than she knew the doctor. She sometimes took carrots for the doctor’s horses in the fields behind his house.

He was not long but even so, it being winter, darkness was beginning to fall by the time he came back, saying gently to the girl, ‘I’m sorry, lassie, I’m afraid that your mother is no more.’

The girl began to cry.

‘There’s nothing else we can do today.’

The girl cried softly and hid her face in her hands. ‘But I can’t go without her,’ she sobbed.

‘I’m afraid you must. I can’t leave you here by yourself.’

‘You can stay with me for now,’ Sarah offered, rather glad that she did not have to face the shop by herself again, and so he nodded and got into the trap and they went back to Wolsingham.

Sarah didn’t like to question the child, even to ask her name would seem like an. . .