nodded. ‘We must make for England for there is nowhere in Ireland I would consider safe. If they were to find us they could demand Celia’s return and I doubt I would have a leg to stand on. I suppose she is agreeable to all this?’
‘She will be,’ Norah said confidently. ‘But as yet she has no idea.’ And she explained how she had sneaked out of church pretending to be sick. ‘I must go soon or I will be missed.’
‘How will I know if Celia agrees?’ Andy said. ‘I will force her to go nowhere.’
‘She will be agreeable, I tell you.’
‘I must know. Can you get out with a message to me?’
‘No I can’t,’ Norah protested. ‘What possible reason could I give for leaving the house without arousing suspicion? I am not locked up like Celia but I am watched like a hawk.’
Andy thought for a minute and then suddenly said, ‘I have it. If I get halfway down your lane I can see your house. Where’s your bedroom?’
‘At the front to the right of the front door.’
‘Right,’ Andy said. ‘If Celia agrees to this, light a lantern and put it in the window tomorrow night. And if that lantern is lit then I will be there to fetch her on Wednesday night at midnight.’
‘Right, that’s settled then,’ Norah said. ‘And now I really must be off before they send a search party out.’
Norah had felt a bit guilty as she walked home that morning because, though every word she had said had been the truth, she had been thinking about herself as well. She knew that Celia thought the world of Andy McCadden but she wasn’t absolutely sure that the love her sister had for him would give her the strength to sneak out to go with a man who intended to take her to another country altogether, one which she had never expressed a wish to go to.
First though, she had to deal with the wrath of her mother who couldn’t believe she had left the church without a word to anyone.
‘I told Celia,’ Norah protested. ‘I hadn’t time to tell anyone else. As it was I only just got out of the church before I was as sick as a dog.’
‘So why then didn’t you come back in?’
‘Because being sick didn’t make me feel any better,’ Norah said. ‘I went for a walk to see if it would help being in the fresh air.’
‘Which it obviously did for you look as right as rain to me now.’
Norah thought it best that she didn’t recover quite so quickly and so she said, ‘My stomach still feels a little delicate.’
‘Well I don’t know what’s up with you,’ Peggy said, almost impatiently as if Norah had been sick to spite her. ‘You’ve never been the sickly type and you’ve had nothing to eat that the rest of us haven’t had. Still, if you say you felt sick then I suppose you did and I won’t give you any porridge this morning – that’ll give your stomach a rest.’
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