The Denniston Rose Read Online Free Page B

out in the lean-to, red in the face from trying to get a good heat under the kerosene tins for her boarders’ hot water. Just when she thought the coal was catching nicely, a rogue wind would drive rain in around the corner and the yellow-red glow would spit and fade.
    Totty straightened to ease her back for a moment and saw what she thought was one of the stray dogs from the Camp coming up out of the mist in search of breakfast. Another heartbeat and she’d have let fly with a lump of coal. You didn’t expect, then, to see a child; there was only her Michael and three or four older ones working round the mines.
    But a child it was: over her head a square of wet tarp that fanned out right down to her boots. A rough hole had been cut for her face,and quick blue eyes examined the dismal sight of Dickson Street in the rain. An astonishing sight. The child trotted through the mud as if she owned the place.
    Forgetting fire and boarders, Totty Hanratty goes to the fence for a better look. The triangular bundle, about four years old at a guess, zigzags down the lane, looking in windows, until Totty calls her over. The child makes a beeline for her, displaying a smile so sunny it surely must cover something darker on a morning like this. She holds out her hand; a threepenny piece lies on a bloody, muddy palm.
    ‘Can I buy some bread here?’ she asks, smiling still.
    ‘Come in quick!’ says Totty, frowning to see the caked blood. She holds open the gate and the little one trots in, trusting as a puppy. ‘Give me a moment with this fire, then we’ll see what we can find.’ The child stands under the lean-to, close to the fire which after all has got itself going, as soon as no one was watching, wouldn’t you know it.
    ‘The Company Store is the place you want,’ says Totty, busy with the shovel and glad to talk to anyone. ‘Down by the Bins. But it won’t be open yet, sweetheart. If you’re hungry you can have a bite with my Michael.’
    ‘Mother and Father will want some too.’
    ‘And who are they?’ asks Totty, dying to know.
    The child frowns and looks at the fire for a bit. ‘They’re still asleep.’
    ‘Down at the Camp are they?’
    The child looks at Mrs Hanratty in a conversational kind of way, like an adult. ‘I don’t know the names here yet. Mother and I only came in the night.’
    Totty smiles, thinking the child has got her times wrong. No one could have arrived last night. Yet it’s strange she hasn’t heard. Another child, after all.

    ‘Well, then, so your father has been here for a bit, has he?’
    ‘I suppose so,’ says the child doubtfully. Then the smile comes out again as she remembers something. ‘He’s called Mr James of County Cork.’ The name is pronounced with pride.
    Totty Hanratty breathes in sharply and can think of nothing to say. She flips two cloths from the nail on the wall, wraps them around the wire handles of a pair of steaming tins, lifts them down, heaves two fresh ones onto the grate in their place, careful not to slop water on the coals.
    ‘Well, come in anyway,’ she says finally, but her face is less welcoming.
    The weight of the tins wrenches her arms down, drives her boots deeper as she crosses the yard to the back door. The child follows, the hem of her stiff little cape dipping into the mud with each bobbing step.
    Totty’s stern look melts when she sees the child lay her threepence carefully on the doorstep where she can see it, and unlace her boots one by one. Michael can’t anywhere near do that. The hand is clearly giving pain but the child shakes her head, proud of her skill, when offered help.
    In the wash-house Totty cleans the wound, sponging gently with some of her warm water. The thought of this little girl wandering unknown on the Hill is almost more than the mind can take in.
    ‘That’s a nasty gash. Does it hurt?’
    ‘No.’ Though the smile is stiffer now.
    ‘How did it happen?’ Totty suspects Jimmy Cork.
    ‘There was something