Children of Toil ✔

Chapter Two

Lucan nodded to the women who had gathered in his lane. He recognized some of their faces. When he heard their whispered voices, Lucan looked back to see their eyes following him.

A horse drawn buggy was stationed nearby. Lucan wondered whose house it was visiting.

He reached his door and noticed it was unlocked. A smile crossed his face as he heard the sound of a baby crying. Stepping through the doorway he called, "Kat!"

Missus Hare came to meet him with Covey in her arms.

Lucan rubbed the top of his son's head. "Kat?" he questioned. "She's had the child?"

Emily Hare looked down at the floor where he stood.

His eyes widened as he stepped forward, pushed past her and continued on his way. "Kat..!"

Lucan stopped in the doorway, slumped against its frame and stared at Kat as she lay on the bed. An intense pain wedged in his chest. Her eyes were closed but he knew she was not asleep.

He fell on his knees beside the bed and touched her face. She was no longer warm and though somewhere in his mind he had known it, the realisation she was dead stung him hard. It pounded at his head, swept through his body and tore out his heart.

A hand touched his shoulder. Lucan looked at the face but it was not one he recognised.

"I'm sorry, Mister Hayes. We could no stop the bleeding."

Lucan struggled to breathe. He climbed onto the bed and took Kat in his arms.

The voice continued in the distance as he rocked her body backwards and forwards. It talked of the child, its gender and weight.

Lucan kissed her face, touched her hair and untangled a curl.

The voice talked on, "The bairn tis well. Healthy."

Tears pooled in Lucan's eyes, spilled over his lashes and on to his cheeks.

"Yer neighbour, Missus Hare, has your bairns. She'll take care of them until you can arrange something."

Lucan touched Kat's lips with his fingers. Touched Kat's lips with his own.

"I will return the morrow." The voice softened, "For her body."

Lucan left her. Pushed past the stranger and went out through the door.

He staggered along the road, pot holed and muddy. His boots sodden with slush.

His. Kat. Dead.

Not twelve hours before he had kissed her goodbye, stroked her soft fair hair with his fingers and felt her heart with his hand.

Lucan stopped, looked to the sky, at the sun sinking, the fog and light mist that fell. He crouched down in the sludge, rested his elbows on his knees and hung his head. He ran his hands through his thick dark hair and cried. Big heavy sobs. They heaved from his chest and jerked at his body. He had no sense of time. Just loss. A hollow formed in his soul. Its gap was wide. Lucan knew that the child, whose birth had delivered Kat into the hands of God, would not be able to fill it.

It was only when the cockle man, his donkey and cart rumbled toward him, did he look up.

The rain came, light drops driven by the wind. Lucan held his face to the sky, hoping its freshness might wash away his grief.

The cockle man tipped his hat as he passed. Lucan watched as the donkey walked on, pulled the wagon slowly. He watched as the wooden wheels turned and the cockles bounce in the baskets.

Lucan stood and continued along the road. He let his feet take him and focused on the trees which grew in lines, bare of leaves, in preparation for the winter that would come.