Free A Daughter's Secret by Anne Bennett Page B

whole of her life. ‘Does she know prostitutes?’ she said.
    In Buncrana such things just didn’t go on, but everyone knew that prostitutes were the very dregs of society.
    McAllister laughed. ‘Time for you to grow up, little girl,’ he sneered. ‘When our father died, Gwen was fifteen and there were six mouths to feed. With my mother gone to pieces altogether, Gwen went on the streets to prevent us all starving to death. She eventually married one of the punters. Our mother had died by then too, and as I was the youngest she took me in to live with her and her husband. Then when she was widowed, she went back out on the streets again to provide for her son. That’s how it is.’
    Aggie mouth dropped open. She had never been so shaken in the whole of her life. Surely that wasn’t really how things were, not in normal, respectable society.
    ‘What price is virtue, Agnes?’ McAllister went on. ‘Especially if the alternative is starving to death?’ He gave a wry laugh and added, ‘Not that Philomena knows any of this. She would react very much as you did, shocked to the core of her Roman Catholic soul. She doesn’t know much about my earlier life at all. She met Gwen just the once, at our wedding, and they never really hit it off. I used to visit Gwen on my own after that.’
    ‘I am not surprised they didn’t hit it off,’ Aggie said, her lip curling in distaste. ‘Your wife is an honest and decent woman. You talk about womenchoosing to go with men for money as if it is just a job like any other.’
    ‘So it is.’
    ‘How can you say that? Aren’t there normal jobs for people?’
    ‘Jobs are often few and far between,’ McAllister said. ‘And if you should get one, it will usually be backbreaking work for long hours, and all you pick up at the end of the week is a pittance of a wage. Gwen didn’t want that sort of life and I don’t blame her.’
    Aggie was silent. She wondered what sort of place she was going to at all where things totally alien to her seemed almost commonplace. What sort of woman was this Gwen, whom she would be forced to rely on? The apprehension in her increased. However, it was too late now for doubts and second thoughts. The die was cast.
    McAllister delivered Aggie to Derry Station, but could not take time to stay with her because he had to get the horse back to Buncrana before the place was astir. Aggie understood his concern, even shared it, and yet it was hard to see him disappear into the darkness. The waiting room was open so there was shelter from the wind at least, but inside the dark was so intense Aggie thought a person could almost touch it. She was so cold her teeth chattered and she couldn’t remember being as scared in the whole of her life.
    For a time she sat on the wooden benchrunning around the walls, aching with cold and fear, but eventually, worn down by weariness, she lay down on the bench, drew her legs under her, and with her shawl wrapped about her she closed her eyes.
    She woke stiff and colder than ever, and noticed straight away that the darkness was not so deep. She pulled herself to her feet and began to walk briskly around the small room, slapping herself with her arms to get the blood flowing as she watched light steal into the day. Already she would have been missed at home, but her parents would know no more than that, because Tom would never betray her.
    She wondered what they would think, for she’d spoken the truth when she’d told McAllister that she hadn’t a penny piece to bless herself with. She wondered how long it would be until her mother noticed the missing clothes and would guess that she had run away. Mammy would be perplexed for she would know that Aggie had nowhere to run to.
    Would McAllister betray her? She doubted that. There was one other person, though, that would, at the very least, be aware that McAllister hadn’t slept in his bed that night and that was Philomena. When the news that she had run away from home became