A Dilemma Chapter 1
“Mama, it’s snowing.” Elevenyear old JamieDalton pressed his face up against the nursery window. “And they’re the biggest snowflakes I’ve ever seen.” He turned to his little sisters. “We’ll go out and build a snowman later, shall we?”
Picking up Annabella, who had started to grizzle, Tillie replied. “I’m afraid not, Jamie. The twins are much too little, and Auntie Ruby tells me this little one was coughing again during the night.”
Fifteen-month old Alice toddled over to the window. Tillie noticed her red frock was becoming rather short. She would have to see about having new ones made for each of the twins. Something else to arrange.
Alice climbed onto the seat next to her brother and put her podgy hand into his.
He pointed outside. “Look, Alice, snow. Isn’t it great?”
She nodded, cuddling up to him, her thumb in her mouth as usual, her golden ringlets contrasting with his darker hair. Beneath her little bonnet, her bright eyes―the image of her father’s, and as blue as sapphires in her round face―beamed with love each time she looked at her big brother. Tillie couldn’t wish for a closer relationship between her children and, although Annabella was so often confined to bed with illness, so hadn’t developed such a tight bond, she knew Jamie loved her just as well. Although she’d wanted to call her ‘Amelia’, David had decided, on the morning of their christening that, as Alice had been named after Tillie’s grandmother, he wanted their other twin to have his mother’s name. So Annabella it was. They could always name the next baby ‘Amelia’.
She patted her belly and, shaking her head when she heard her son whispering to Alice, “We’ll ask Papa when he comes in, eh?” she placed the now sleeping Annabella in her crib and crossed the room to stand behind the pair at the window.
“I heard that, young man, and no, you mustn’t bother your father. He has much more important matters to deal with. Anyway, he won’t be back until late. He…”
She had been about to give him some bad news, but decided against it. There was no need to tell him just yet.
“Can I play with me train, then?” He climbed down from the windowseat.
“It’s ‘may’ not ‘can’. Please try to remember, but yes, and don’t forget to put it all away afterwards. Nellie nearly fell over the carriage you left out last week. It was a good job she wasn’t carrying anything or she would have fallen.”
“Sorry, Mama, but it weren’t my fault. Auntie Ruby called me for tea before I finished putting it away, and I forgot to do it later.”
“You’ve always got an excuse, haven’t you?” She ruffled her son’s hair as Alice removed her thumb from her mouth and uttered, “tain.”
“Mama, she said ‘train’,” exclaimed Jamie, picking up the little girl in excitement. “She said ‘train’.”
Tillie tickled her daughter under her chin. “Aren’t you a clever girl?”
“Say it again.” he tried to coax her into repeating it, but the thumb had been replaced and she was silent again.
“Perhaps she will later. Come on, let’s get the box[MSOffice1] out, but don’t make too much noise. Annabella needs her sleep.”
After taking another look at the sleeping child, she helped him set up the track on the nursery floor.
Ruby poked her head around the door. “Need any help?” She came in, gesturing towards Jamie, who was playing happily, and mouthed, “Have you told him yet?”
