The Golden Cross - A Promise Broken

The Golden Cross

Chapter One - A Promise Broken

1860
Mary was a remarkably pretty girl, but like so many others in the
Victorian period, she was also a poor girl, an orphan whose sole
possession in the world was a gold cross necklace and two shillings.
Mary was made to beg on the dirty streets of Lancaster where she soon
made four friends, parentless and similar in age, Luke, Michael,
Rebecca and most dear to her of all, Matthew.

The four children lived on the streets, starvation haunted them, the
North Wind froze them. Life itself was torture for them, but for four
years, they had survived, lived through the icy winter, fought through
hunger and illness, but their purses remained empty and silent.

The story starts on December of a particularly bitter winter. Matthew
woke Mary through clattering teeth and whispered.
"I'm going to London"
Mary yawned,
"When you're older?"
"No, tomorrow."
Fully awake, Mary stared at Matthew, shocked,
"Are you ever gonna come back?"
"'Cause I am, in half a year's time and no more, I'm gonna be a
business man!"
Mary couldn't stop herself laughing.
"Quiet! You watch, I'm gonna own the biggest mansion in the whole of
Britain and people are gonna call me sir, not 'you filthy beggar',"
Matthew's green eyes sparkled, "I'm gonna be rich!"
"You wish, anyway you can't go to London."
"Why not?"
"'Cause, how ya gonna get there?"
"By the steam engine." He showed Mary the tickets, looking fondly at
it. "Stole it from a gentleman yesterday."
"Have you told the others?"
"No, I wanted to tell you first?" Color rose in his cheeks, glowing in
the darkness.
"Well come on then, they're not gonna be too pleased mind you."

And they weren't, they tried to persuade Matthew to stay with them but
no matter how hard they tried, Matthew's mind was set. When the ten 'o
clock train to London departs. He was going to go with it.

* * *

Mary stood in the departure's queue of the railway station, waiting
for Matthew to say goodbye to her.
"You promise me you're gonna be back in six months time?"
"Yeah, I promise."
Remembering something Mary loosened the golden cross necklace hanging
from her neck.
"Here take this."
Looking down at the necklace Matthew said softly,
"But it's yours Mary, I can't take it."
"You can and you will, you need it more than I do, sell it to start
your business."
"Yeah but..."
"Take it, or I'll... I'll never talk to you again!"
Laughing he softly touched Mary's cheeks with his lips and went aboard
the train, to depressed to be embarrassed Mary said one last
time.
"Promise me you'll be back in half a year's time."
"I promise."

With a choo, choo the train moved along the tracks, Mary waved from
the stand, watching Matthew disappearing into the streams of steam,
moving into the distance. Small drops of tear fell silently down her
cheeks. Had she known that Matthew would be gone for seven years not
six months, that he would no longer be a boy but a young man when he
returns. The smile which she had bravely worn would have faded long
ago, her face would be glowing with tears, her soft blue eyes red from
crying, her voice shaky and filled with hiccups. And she would be
running now, running with the train, to keep her best friend, the most
important person to her, from disappearing into the smoke, out of her
life for what would seem like an eternity. Most of all she wouldn't be
here in six month time, a bunch of wild flowers in her hand , waiting,
hoping and going back home three days later, hungry and heartbroken,
with images of Matthew laying in a coffin, haunting her sleep.