Pauper's Child

by Meg Hutchinson

  ‘It is not an unpleasant name though you must admit it is certainly different for… for an area like Wednesbury. You might even say it was carefully chosen!’

  Looking over the rim of his glass Phineas Westley surveyed the face which had all the hallmarks of his sister. Patrician looks, he would call the straight slender nose and well cut mouth, the finely arched brows curving over eyes of brilliant blue. Yes, his sister had been a fine looking woman and her son was a fine looking man and like her, he too, showed caution in his characterisation of others, but now this hesitation in choosing his words illustrated clearly his distrust of the girl.

  ‘You could say that indeed.’ Phineas sipped his brandy.

  Callista! Repeating the name to himself Michael grudgingly admitted he thought it not at all unpleasant, but had it been truly the girl’s given name or was it one deliberately contrived to impress an old man devoted to classical mythology? Lifting his glance from the glass he looked into the grey eyes watching him intently.

  ‘Callista,’ he said aloud, ‘is that not a derivation of the name of one of your beloved Greek goddesses?’

  ‘Of Callisto, companion of the divine Artemis.’

  ‘Ah!’ Michael nodded, recalling the stories he had heard so often. ‘Callisto, the pretty wood nymph who caught the roving eye of Zeus and by whom she had a son causing his wife Hera to strike in a fit of jealousy which had the nymph changed into a bear.’

  ‘Hera, the queen of the gods.’ Phineas smiled. ‘But no less a woman and as many have learned to their detriment there is no fury like that of a woman scorned.’

  And no man more foolish than one taken in by a young woman’s artifice! Phineas Westley was an intelligent man but would that be enough to protect him from a scheming woman? Michael looked again into his glass as the older man continued.

  ‘But our pretty nymph was not abandoned completely by her lover nor do the stories make it certain it was his wife’s action had her changed into a bear or whether it was Zeus himself protecting her from the anger of his queen; we are told that Callisto was shot by Artemis in the woods and in compassion Zeus set her among the stars as the She-Bear.’

  And where will you place your wood nymph, what will her reward be, money… marriage… Was that this modern Callisto’s aim? Marriage to a wealthy man regardless of love? That aim too was as cruel as the arrow of his uncle’s goddess of the hunt. But this was no myth. Michael Farron twisted the glass held between tight fingers. And Callista Sanford was no immortal; she might think Phineas Westley a man she could easily dupe but she would learn his nephew was no man to fool with!

  *

  It had not been too late! Alone in the small room, the only sounds those of the simmering pot and tick of the clock on the mantel, Callista gave way to the shudder she had suppressed as Oswin Slade had pressed his lips to her mouth. It had not been a tender kiss, the kiss of a man in love, but a demanding, dictatorial suppressive kiss of a man set upon showing domination. And his touch! She shuddered again, eyes closed tight against the memory. Those thick hands had caught at her, holding her close to his body, a body she had felt pulsing through her thin skirts. The revulsion of it had been too much and she had pushed free only to hear him laugh, a hoarse gasping sound catching in his throat. ‘I can wait.’ His eyes had gleamed as he had said those words. ‘I can wait, but once the banns are called we will be married and then the waiting will be over!’

  Like his kiss the words had held no love but the dark shadow of threat. Once she became Mrs Oswin Slade she would be his property to do with as he would, to treat in any way which pleased him.

  She could have told him… told him what she felt in her heart, the truth of her feelings for him. She had been almost there, had said, ‘We will not be married’; if only she had stood by that one simple statement, had let the words stand as she had spoken them. But she had not! A sob trembling on a mouth she had rubbed sore immediately on closing the door behind the heavy dark suited figure, she opened her eyes. She had not!

  He had demanded to be told what she meant by those words. Callista stared at the two bronze coins lying in the centre of the table. That had been the moment she should have been strong, the moment to repeat her statement, but the sound of her mother’s terrible coughing had robbed her of that strength and she had forced herself to apologise, tell him what she meant to say had been, ‘We will not be married for a while, it will take time for me to become accustomed to your ways.’

  His smile had been cunning, his eyes vulpine. Callista reached for a shallow basin, spooning broth into it. The tip of his tongue had flicked across his flabby lips like a snake’s, scenting its prey, and it had taken every atom of her will power not to shout her dislike of him. But to have done that… to do it even now would deprive her mother of any chance of health.

  ‘Why?’ The sob on her lips became a soft tortured cry none could hear but herself. ‘Why did it happen… what is it which so annoyed the Fates?’

  Placing the basin on a plate she set a spoon beside it then reaching to the line of string fastened wall to wall above the fireplace took down a piece of clean cloth.

  They will not tell you, Callista. It seemed her father’s voice whispered in her mind. The Fates are jealous of their secrets, they keep them hidden.

  As she must keep her own hidden! Draping the cloth over her arm she picked up the plate and basin, walking with them up the narrow stairs. No one must ever learn the secret in her heart. The fact that she held only contempt and dislike for the man she would soon marry must remain forever locked away.

  5

  ‘Your mother be bad, wench, her be needin’ of a doctor.’

  ‘I know that, Mrs Povey, but I have no money to pay.’

  ‘That be the same wi’ everybody in Trowes Court, all works our fingers to the bone but finishes up no better off than paupers.’ Ada Povey sniffed loudly. ‘There be nowt fair to life in this world!’

  It had not been fair to her mother. Callista’s thoughts flew to the woman lying upstairs. She was thin to the point of shadow, her face pale as marble, the fine lines of veins showing through the papery skin. But she made no complaint, asked for nothing while each time her daughter entered the bedroom her weary eyes gleamed their love.

  ‘You could go to the Parish.’ Ada Povey glanced at the empty fireplace. ‘They’ll send the doctor.’

  ‘I asked Mother could I do that but she would not hear of it, she said we would accept no charity.’

  Ada Povey’s head nodded slowly. ‘An’ that be summat else the folk of Trowes Court ’olds in common! They asks for nobody’s charity; but atwixt you and me, wench, I sees precious little other you can do. You’ve said y’self you’ve traipsed the town asking for work while findin’ none.’

  It was true. Callista drew her shawl closer against cold still chilling every bone. She had spent most of each day walking the streets seeking employment, returning every couple of hours to assure herself of her mother’s comfort then resuming the search until late evening. But what comfort did her returning give her mother? She could not put words on a plate, a smile could not constitute a meal or place coals on a fire.

  ‘Look, wench, I knows well how your mother feels about Parish charity same as I knows it will do more harm than it’ll do good aforcin’ of her to take it, but at the same time her be a needing of a linctus to ease that chest of her’n.’ Ada lifted one corner of a dark apron pocked with the tiny burn marks of flying sparks coming from the hammering of hand forged nails, wiping her nose on it. ‘Look,’ she said again, letting the apron fall into place, ‘I’ve been meanin’ to put this to you for some days since. There be a woman I knows. Me and the others we goes to see her when… when we be up the spout.’

  ‘Up the spout?’ Callista frowned enquiringly.

  ‘Ar, you knows, wench, when we’ve took a tumble… when we’ve gone and got with another babby!’ The last came on a note of exasperation followed at once by one more shake of the head. ‘They needs keepin’ do
babbies and Trowes Court already has all it can feed. Poverty can do more than bring tears, wench, it brings starvation, I knows ’cos I’ve seen it on more’n one little face, every woman in Trowes Court has, and not wanting to see more of the same be often the reason we visits with Eulalie Ulmar.’

  ‘But what can this have to do with my mother and me?’ Callista blushed deeply. ‘We… we are neither of us pregnant.’

  ‘Tcha!’ Ada Povey’s exasperation sounded afresh. ‘I knows that, wench, I can spot a babby in the belly afore a wench sees the first signs for ’erself! But I didn’t go saying it were for just that one reason alone women goes to see Eulalie. The woman be skilled with herbs and liberal with kindness, her don’t ask for what her sees a woman don’t ’ave; but afore you cries “charity” let me tell you there be ways of making payment without the using o’ coin, ways such as the mendin’ of a roof or a bucket, the cobbling of a shoe or a pennorth of shag tobacco.’

  ‘But I can’t mend roofs or buckets nor do I have a penny for tobacco!’

  ‘That don’t go to say as you never will ’ave!’ Ada retorted. ‘’Aven’t I said the woman be liberal with kindness, her won’t turn nobody away ’cos they comes with no payment in their ’ands and no more will her turn you away. Go see her, Callista wench, could be her will ’ave the means of easin’ your mother, you can but try.’

  She would do anything to help her mother get well, even go so far as to marry a man she did not love… what was paying a visit to a herbal woman compared to that? Smiling agreement Callista asked, ‘Will you tell me where this woman lives, Mrs Povey?’

  ‘I’ll do more’n that.’ Ada Povey beamed. ‘I’ll take you along of her meself… we’ll go tonight.’

  *

  The half-crown he had taken in rent for that house was likely the last money the Sanfords had. Oswin Slade watched an auburn haired woman run a swift finger over the column of pencilled figures he had marked in his collecting book. He had not expected Callista would be able to pay on that last call yet she had handed the two shillings and one sixpence to him without batting an eyelid. There had been fire in the grate with a pot of tempting broth bubbling over it. So where had she got her money from?

  ‘Number six Hobbins Street has not paid… this is the second time!’

  Oswin returned rapidly to the moment as a finger tapped sharply against the page. The woman’s head bobbed dartingly. Oswin swallowed. She looked like a blood spattered crow pecking the flesh from some hapless creature.

  ‘No.’ He cleared his throat, nervous of what would come next. ‘No… they said their eldest was poorly and hadn’t worked…’

  ‘Eldest, youngest, what do I care if their brat is unwell! Perhaps if a few of their brood died so they did not have the cost of keeping them then they could pay their rent. I tell you, Slade, Mr Derry is not going to be pleased… I am not pleased!’

  ‘I warned them…’

  ‘You warned them!’ The bobbing head stilled but eyes grey and cold as frozen mud raked cuttingly across the nervous face. ‘You warned them… now I warn you, Slade, one more week with an incomplete collection… you allow just one more rent to go unpaid and you will be standing the line with the rest of the unemployed. Mr Derry does not pay wages for a job he considers unsuitably done and this…’ The finger tapped the book again. ‘He will most certainly view as unsuitable. You do understand, Slade?’

  He understood. Leaving Hill House, Oswin stood breathing deeply. That bitch of a woman treated him like dirt! She blamed him when a family failed to pay their weekly rent… went over his figures close enough to lift them from the page. And the takings, Lord, how she counted those takings, handling each coin reverently as a priest would the Holy Sacrament. But then money was the god of the master of Derry coal mines and his wife a most devoted acolyte.

  Money! Oswin stared across the sweep of the hill to where two church spires rose almost side by side, then out across the spread of the smoke hazed town, winding wheels of collieries ringing it like a necklace. Money was power and he wanted both, deserved both. He had not spent the years of his boyhood kicking a tin can about the streets or swimming in the canal like the others; his time had been given to numbers, adding, multiplying, dividing but always numbers until he could handle them with closed eyes. They had already provided him with a house of his own, small, yes, but then from little acorns mighty oaks do grow and Oswin Slade would be an oak. Edwin Derry’s wife could sift the figures he had recorded, go over them again and again before penning them into her own ledgers, enjoy the satisfaction of seeing their total but what she would never see was what was kept for himself… the tuppence here and sixpence there, increases he placed upon those rents, money which went into the pocket of Oswin Slade, money which accumulated steadily.

  Self-satisfaction a balm, he smiled inwardly. Some day he would have his own coal mine, his own string of houses tenants would need to pay heavily for… and his own fine red brick house. One day – soon – Oswin Slade would be a name to reckon with in Wednesbury.

  *

  She could not go to that woman empty handed, ask for her medicines yet pay nothing for them. Sitting beside her mother’s bed Callista thought over Ada Povey’s offer to take her to the herb woman. Was it the right thing to do… would it be the right thing not to do? Should she tell Mrs Povey she had changed her mind, that she would ask instead for the Parish doctor to call? But requests to the Parish took time. ‘The Board had to consider, they must enquire into the circumstances of such requests.’ That had been the answer given to another family in Trowes Court when the father had suffered from arms and a leg badly injured in an accident at the mine where he dug for coal and, while they considered, infection had set in claiming the man’s life. Looking at the shadow circled eyes closed in fitful sleep Callista knew time was an option she could not afford. She must go with Ada Povey.

  At the other side of the bed the embers of a small fire settled deeper into their own grey ash. Tomorrow would see the last of the coal she had bought. Why bother with visiting the herb woman? Callista let the sob fall quietly from her lips, dropping her head into her hands. Why bother about medicine when she could not feed her mother or keep her warm, why not just let it all go the way it would in the end?

  ‘Callista, Callista child, don’t cry.’

  ‘I… I wasn’t crying. Mother.’ Lifting her head Callista brushed her eyes with a finger.

  ‘Nor must you speak an untruth even when it is kindly meant. Your father taught that lying was not a quality to be admired, especially not in a wood nymph.’

  It had been so long since she had been called that, so long since her father had left them. The pain of it rising now like a living thing inside her, Callista caught at the wasted hand, pressing it to her cheek.

  ‘Why, Mother?’ she whispered brokenly. ‘Why did it happen, why did my father take his own life?’

  There had been many times in the long years of widowhood when she had known this question must be answered yet each time she had put it off; but now, looking at the pale unhappy face of the daughter she cherished, Ruth Sanford realised it could be put off no longer. She had never spoken of suicide, telling her daughter only that her father had died. But others in Trowes Court had spoken of it. On the day of the funeral they had gathered in their groups, women holding babies on their hips or infants in their arms, while one hand covered the eyes of older children, trying to keep them from seeing the spectacle of a coffin being passed from a window down a ladder to ground level, then carried not through a gate but over the wall to the waiting handcart and taken to be laid beyond the boundary of sanctified ground. Such had been the burying of Jason Sanford… a man guilty only of falling in love.

  ‘He did not intend to hurt you, my love.’ Ruth spoke quietly. ‘He did not want to hurt either of us.’

  ‘Then why?’

  There was pain and heartache in that question, the same pain and heartache she had felt whenever it arose in her own heart. Ruth touched the shining
black hair.

  ‘I cannot expect you will understand,’ she said, ‘and will not blame you but I believe your father ended his life so we could live ours in peace. It began long before you were born. Jason and I met at the Spring Fair; he was handsome with hair and eyes the same colour as your own and when he smiled it seemed you saw a glimpse of heaven. We spent the rest of that evening just walking about the fairground though I heard and saw nothing other than the tall figure walking beside me. Over the weeks…’A cough rattling up from her lungs took the words from her mouth and the hand stroking the ebony hair fell to rest on the sheets.

  ‘No more, Mother…’

  ‘No!’ Eyes fever bright, Ruth fought for breath. ‘No, it… it must be told now. We should not have met again, I think deep down we both knew that; but something drew us to each other, something too strong to be denied. It was wrong, wrong to love each other. I tried… I tried to stop when Jason told me…’

  The terrible cough rising again had Callista reach for the glass of water beside the bed. ‘Please,’ she said as her mother sipped, ‘please rest now, I don’t need to hear any more.’ But even as the glass was returned to the table the weak voice was speaking again.

  ‘Your father told me… he… he was engaged to be married. I felt as if my world had shattered into a thousand tiny pieces; I ran from him, keeping to the house where I was in service, not stepping beyond its doors. My days were a blur and my nights long stretches of heartbreak. Then two weeks later I was sent to fetch cottons from the town and on my return found Jason standing at the gates. He had been there every evening since our parting, he looked so… so drawn and tired but when he took me in his arms we both felt life return to our hearts. It was then we knew we could not live without each other. It was decided he would tell his fiancée, ask her forgiveness and we would be married. But it was not so easy as he had made it seem. Julia Montroy would not release him from his pledge; she said she would see to it he lost his position as private tutor. If that happened he would be without a penny so we continued as before except our love deepened with the weeks until each separation became a torment.