The Other Daughter Read Online Free

hands cold in her leather gloves. There was something about dawn, about the right sort of dawn, that made all the frights of the night seem so much nonsense. If her mother had grown worse, Jim would have let her know, surely? There would have been more than just the one telegram.
    On board the Channel packet, she lifted her face to the salt sea air, relishing the slap of the wind against her face. It was an ill wind … But this wasn’t an ill wind. It smelled of England and visits to the seaside.
    A change in London, and then another in King’s Lynn. With each stop closer to home, Rachel felt her anxiety subside. The air still had the bite of winter to it, but the sun poured down like a blessing, and Rachel felt her feelings lift at the sight of it, despite the itch of clothes worn too long. If her mother had been that ill, Jim would have sent another telegram, found some way to find her.
    The local train dawdled its way along, decanting housewives with piles of shopping and chattering girls from the school. Rachel had been one of those girls once. Swinging off the train at Netherwell station, barely a pause before the train was off again, she could imagine herself that schoolgirl again, satchel in hand, a straw boater on her head. Her boots crunched on the well-worn path, rich with the scent of mulch and loam, just a hint of coal smoke in the air.
    There was a shortcut through a copse of trees, a place where the leaves twined overhead, forming a natural arch. Rather than leading into the village proper, it deposited Rachel only yards from the cottage, close enough that she could see the familiar gray stone, softened with its fall of ivy, the smoke rising from the chimney.
    A sense of indescribable relief flooded Rachel at the sight of that smoke. There was light in the old, leaded windows, a warm glow that made her quicken her step, the carpetbag light in her hand.
    The stones in the walk were cracked and old. With the ease of long practice, Rachel wove her way around the wobbly bits. No need to knock; the door was never locked.
    â€œMother?” She flung open the door. There was no hall. The front door led directly into the sitting room, that wonderfully familiar sitting room, with the hideous red plush furniture they had let with the house, and the fire that always smoked.
    Someone was bent over the fire now, wielding the poker with a tentative hand.
    But it wasn’t Rachel’s mother. Rachel’s mother wouldn’t have been so gingerly with the fire; she would have thwacked it smartly into submission. This woman was too short, too slight, her hair a strawberry blond instead of brown streaked with gray.
    Rachel let her carpetbag drop. “Alice?”
    Alice started, the poker catching on the edge of a coal. “Rachel!” Rachel’s best friend thrust the poker back into its rest. “Thank heavens. I’d begun to think something had happened to you.”
    No time to explain now. Rachel started for the stairs. “My mother. Is she—”
    Rubbing her sooty hands on her skirt, Alice scurried between Rachel and the stairs. She held up a grimed hand. “Rachel. I’m so sorry.”

 
    TWO
    The pity on Alice’s face awoke a host of nameless terrors.
    â€œWhere is she? Upstairs? In bed?”
    Sick, wasted. Well, that didn’t matter. Rachel was home now. She would take care of her. She knew a bit of nursing. They had all done their bit in the local infirmary during the war, emptying basins, rolling bandages. She could plump pillows, force broth down her mother’s throat, hold her to life by sheer force of will if necessary.
    Not that it would be necessary. Her mother had enough force of will of her own. Enough for three. Enough to beat anything, even influenza.
    Alice lifted a hand to stop her, then let it fall. “Rachel … she’s gone.”
    â€œGone,” repeated Rachel. What did gone mean, anyway? Gone to hospital? Gone to the