Arthur was quiet, unmoving, staring into the liquid in his glass. ‘It’s not fair,’ he said, not looking up.
‘I know,’ said Henry. ‘I know it’s not fair. But I promise, if we can right ourselves, you can head back to Oxford as soon as it’s feasible. I want you to have an education, Arthur, I want that.’
‘I’m glad you want that,’ said Arthur. ‘And it’s wonderful that you get to decide that.’
‘Arthur,’ said Henry, pleading now.
Arthur swallowed the drink in one gulp and walked from the room, slamming the door behind him. Henry wondered if he was going to the stables. They had reduced their horses in the stable yard and the hands there too. Henry had considered selling Arthur’s stallion, a horse that would fetch a good price at stud. But he might try and hold on to him for a bit longer. Especially with the mood Arthur was in.
* * *
The fallout from the wedding that never happened had been costly to Henry, both financially and in terms of his reputation. When Lord Eustace watched his daughter break down in her white wedding dress, he vowed vengeance on Henry and had attacked him in a blazing row that afternoon at the house. They should have been sheltering in the marquee or seated, nibbling on hors d’oeuvre, waiting for the wedding banquet to be brought out. Instead, Henry was in the great room, his back to the fireplace, Lord Eustace reaching up to him, trying to contain himself.
‘You, absolute bastard!’ he shouted. ‘How dare you? Who do you think you are? Embarrassing us like this. Doing this to my daughter. Don’t you know who we are? Don’t you know that this means?’
Henry let him rant and rave, accepting the spittle that landed on his cheeks.
‘Your father would never have allowed this. This would not have happened under Seymour’s watch. You absolute bollocks.’
Henry looked at him, trying to give him the respect he deserved, accepting the admonishments being rained upon him. Everything the man said was right. He did deserve to be roared at. To be spat at. To be told what a useless human being he was.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I really am truly sorry.’
‘Are you going to tell her that?’ asked Lord Eustace. ‘Are you going to tell her why? Why you’ve taken it upon yourself to go and ruin her future, her reputation. Her life!’
‘I will tell her if you think that’s what’s best,’ said Henry. ‘Lord Eustace, you might not see it now, but I feel this is for the best. In the long run.’
His ex-future father-in-law was pacing the floor, treading marks all over the large Persian rug. He stopped at Henry’s words and came over, right up to his face again.
‘All I see is a broken-hearted girl and a thousand bloody pounds wasted on an absolute blaggard like you. You will pay every penny of this back. Every penny. And I’ve a good mind to sue. For breach of contract.’
Henry let him express his anger. He stood, the fire burning the back of his legs, his hands clasped together behind him. This was part of it, listening to this man go on, shouting. But soon, Lord Eustace would have to leave and then it would be over. He would sell the land to pay the debt. The debt that the Lord and his daughter had insisted on. He would pay for painted eggs, hand-moulded chocolates, and paper decorations to place around the trees and stairwell. He would pay for the hire of the glassware and candles and coloured decorative sashes for the great room.
Henry would pay all of it back and then he could move on with the rest of his life. A life, at least, that would be free.
He could deal with being broke. He could deal with putting the lands up for sale to pay for an extravagant party that he never wanted in the first place.
It was a loveless marriage that he couldn’t face. And when Lord Eustace left the great room, banging the door so hard that the windows rattled, Henry felt his shoulders relax and his neck soothe. What he had done today had been difficult, possibly the most difficult thing he had ever done in his life. But it was the right thing. And he felt so much better for it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
GLADYS
It felt good to finally have him in her arms. To know, that this was the one. That this was the one who would be staying, who she would be keeping, who would call her Mama.
He had surprised her, sitting there all by himself in the pram. Looking at her. Willing her to lift him up and take him away. She felt it in his face as he approached, that he knew perhaps. That he was looking into the face of his mother.
She had looked around her, making sure no one was watching. There was a woman on the other side of the street carrying a basket heading in the other direction.
Calmly, she picked him up, bringing his blanket with him and wrapping it around his legs and back. She walked as she did it, proud that she had lifted him so deftly, without being seen. She had learned from the last time. No dramatics. No people around watching.
He was a sturdy little thing, his chubby legs pushing against her. She couldn’t wait to get him home and have a good look at him. She walked quickly to the end of the street, left then right again. A horse-drawn omnibus was pulling in at a stop just ahead. She ran, the baby’s head bobbing as she leapt on to the step and sat down on her seat, breathing heavily. She had done it. She was leaving on a bus, her and her new son.
After a few streets, she changed buses. She didn’t want to take any chances that she could be seen, or questioned. Her heart was fluttering, an excitement rising in her chest, that today, she would finally bring their son home to Albert. What a shock he would get when he came in from work. How proud of her he would be.
As they neared the house, the baby started to grizzle, rubbing his head back and forth on her chest. She realised he was looking to be fed and she hurried, thinking ahead to all the things she would have to do this afternoon to get him and the nursery all ready for Albert when he came home.
She put the key in the door and struggled to open it while holding the baby and her shopping basket. This was her new life now. She would have to get used to a number of things, adjust to being a mother.
She boiled the kettle and added the formula milk to the glass bottle, savouring the task, having read the instructions hundreds of times. She scalded the yellow, rubber nipple and tested the temperature on her wrist. When it was ready, she laid the baby back and put the teat to his mouth. He turned his head away, twisting it back and forth. He didn’t want to take it.
Tilting him forward, she tried again and then rubbed his back. The baby started to cry, loudly. After some minutes, she put the bottle down and lifted him against her shoulder. He calmed for a minute, then began to cry again, loud ear-piercing cries of hunger. She shook him, gently, hoping to calm him, but she felt a fluster rise run through her, sweating as she patted him on the back and told him to shush. She pushed the teat into his mouth again, but he refused each time, the gesture only making him more upset and angry.
She wondered if this had been a good idea after all, taking an older baby. Maybe she should have stuck with finding a newborn, one who would never know another mother, one who would take a bottle from her, who wouldn’t make such a fuss.
Feeling like she was starting to lose control, Gladys decided to take the child upstairs. She carried him up to the nursery and laid him in the cot that had been made over and over for months. She had changed the sheets again only yesterday - perhaps sensing that her new baby was on its way.
She left the room and went into her bedroom, taking deep breaths to calm herself. She needed to do something to soothe him, to pacify him. She couldn’t have Albert arriving home to a squalling infant. This wasn’t how she planned it, how she had played out the scene in her head for months, years now. Pacing the floor, she thought of all the things that might satisfy the child. She wondered if she put him to her own breast, would he suckle and stop crying?
Then she thought of it. She only needed to quieten him for a little while. Until she could get the dinner made, the house ready, and herself made up for Albert coming home. She fetched the bottle
from a small cupboard in her bedroom where she kept her perfumes and make-up - a good cough syrup she had bought at a pharmacy last year that had sent her to sleep within minutes. It had been so strong that she had not used it again for the light-headedness it had caused.
The baby was roaring, his cheeks and forehead red, his mouth opening and closing as he cried. What a state he’d worked himself into - she hoped she hadn’t picked an unsettled baby. She took the lid off the bottle and stood over the child, carefully tipping the neck of it to his mouth. She poured a little on to his pink tongue and watched him gurgle a bit as it hit the back of his throat.
He shook his head again as though trying to clear his airways and then cried even louder, a sad and angry cry. She put her hand on his forehead to let him know she was there. After a few minutes, his loud cries became quieter and he put his fist to his mouth, sucking on it. She went downstairs to retrieve his bottle and again tried the large teat in his mouth, squeezing a bit so that the milk went on to his tongue. He took it, suckling on it carefully, before relaxing and getting the flow going on the glass bottle. After he had taken some, he grew tired, his lids drooping and his eyes heavy.
She took the bottle away and rubbed his forehead again, watching him fall into a twitchy sleep. She wrapped the red blanket around his torso and left the room, a smile on her face.
She changed into a dress with a nipped waist that she could wear now that she had removed all the padding. She powdered her face and added a light rouge, rubbing it into her cheeks and lips.
When Albert came in the door, he found his wife seated at the table, a plate of beef and potatoes steaming and a single candle burning bright in front of her.
‘What’s this?’ he said, pointing at the candle and her dress.
‘I have a surprise for you,’ she said. ‘But eat up first.’
They ate their meal together, Albert asking her to let him in on her secret and tell him what was going on. He asked her about Robert and whether she had been to see him that day. ‘Not today,’ she said, smirking, the delicious joy of what she was about to reveal almost too much to bear.
When he had finished his plate and she’d cleared it away she said she would take him upstairs and he was to follow her and not make a sound. Thinking his wife might be leading him to the bedroom, Albert slapped his wife playfully on her bottom and Gladys swiped him away and told him to be quiet.
On the landing, she made for the nursery door, opening it and stepping inside, up to the cot, where in the dark, the baby slept, deeply and peacefully.
She turned to see her husband silhouetted in the doorway.
‘Albert,’ she said, a smile on her face, her eyes shining in the gloom. ‘Meet Robert. Your son. I got him home from the hospital today.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
MOLLY
In the quiet of the mornings, after Tubular had gone to work, I would lie there and stare at a patch in the ceiling. When we had first married I had gotten up before him, set the fires, put on the water, stirred his porridge, boiled him an egg. I had been pleasant. Grateful for the bigger house I was in now. Happy that there was food on the table and for the coins he counted out for me to go to the grocers and the cobblers and wherever else I needed to go. He had given me a bit of freedom. And I appreciated that.
Now, I had no interest. I let him get up alone and make his breakfast like he’d done before I was here. The first few weeks or so he left me to it, but after he grew tired of that, he started to poke me in the shoulder and tell me I had to get up and get on with things. I ignored him, turning over on my side, not listening.
One morning, when I again refused to get up and see to him like a good wife, he came round my side of the bed and pulled me by the arms, forcing me from the bed. I let him drag me to the floor and then I got up and climbed right back in. He rained two blows down on my back, smack - smack, and I didn’t flinch. I had no feelings left at all. All my pain was on the inside. My skin meant nothing. Hit me again, I thought. Go on, do it.
But he didn’t. Instead he left, and I heard him banging pots around the stove and then the front door slam. He let me slip into my depression, where I said nothing, did nothing and stared. At Oliver’s things. At his cot. At his pram.
I’d never felt so low.
When I did get up, usually around lunch time, I’d make weak tea and drink it to give me sustenance. Then I’d pull on my coat and I’d start my search. I always started at the shop where he was taken. I’d wait outside, watching everyone walking by, looking for his little fair head. If no one came I’d walk away and start where I had left off yesterday. I was combing the streets one by one. Knocking on every door, visiting every shop.
‘My baby was stolen, I’m looking for him, fair hair, little boy. Have you seen him?’ As the months passed I tried to imagine the changes in him. Would he be walking now? What words would he be babbling? Was he even alive?
The London Standard had covered the story twice. My hands shook as I read it, a small section at the bottom right hand corner page. ‘Young Irish Mother Appeals for Missing Baby’. It had my name. Molly Cotton. His name, Oliver Cotton. But I wanted to scratch out the words and put in what I felt were our proper names. It was Molly Thomas and Oliver Thomas. How would anyone recognise him with the wrong name?
And then it was a year. The ‘Missing Baby’ posters had fluttered off the lamp posts, the news articles where I was quoted, long gone from the papers.
On the bad days, I let it slip into my head that I would never see him again. That my search was futile, that I was wasting my time. But there was nothing else I could do. I could only walk the streets of London to find him. And that’s what I did.
At first Tubular had helped me search, listened to me talk, met with the police with me, pinned posters all over the streets where we lived. But as the months turned over, he stopped wanting to talk about Oliver and instead said he wanted us to have a child of our own. But I didn’t want another child.
I wanted Oliver.
I stopped letting him touch me at night. I refused his advances, turned away from him, hit back if he tried to hold me or force me. My depression was so great and my grief so bottomless, I lived through a fog of sorrow. He couldn’t help, no one could help. And when I smelled smoke on him one night and scent, I saw it on his face, the shine, the post-coital glow, I knew that he had returned to the kip-house.
Eventually we formed a routine. An existence where we tolerated each other’s presence. I returned to cooking some basic meals, fetching groceries, even cleaning. But we didn’t talk and when he came in from work, I went to bed and when I heard him leave again for the pub or the kip-house or wherever he went these days, I would get back up and pour myself the whiskey I kept under the sink and drink it until I’d enough that would let me sleep for a few hours.
A thought was forming in my mind. It came mostly at night, in between the long stretches of fitful sleeping and uneasy dreams. I was going to write a letter home. I was going to tell them what happened.
It took me a full week to write the letter. I started it and stopped it, crumbling the paper and throwing it right into the fire. I had to get the words in the correct order. I had to say sorry for running away but not mention Mr McKenna at all. I wished I could get the letter to just my mother or my brothers, without his horrible hands ever touching it.
Dear Mam, Michael and Patrick, I wrote. I left out Mr McKenna, I didn’t care at all. He could know that I was not writing to him, because I wasn’t anyways.
I wanted to write to let you know that I am safe. I am sorry for not writing before. I hope you are all keeping well. I am in London.
I wrote carefully, forming the letters with a scratchy pen I’d found in Tubular’s dresser. The ink turned brown as soon as it hit the paper. It reminded me of dried blood.
I am sure you are wondering why I went away and didn’t write. I suppose I wanted an adventure. My news is that I am now married and my name is Molly Cotton. He is a good man.
My pen lingered on the paper, the ink marking the page in a range of little dots as I pressed it down, then took it back up again, leaning over it, thinking. Did I want to tell them about Oliver? I could say he was Tubular’s, they would never know any different.
We had a baby and I named him Oliver.
I looked at the words for a minute, then kept writing.
Unfortunately, something terrible happened and someone took my baby. He is still missing. I search for him every day. They took him out of the pram one day on the street.
I read over those lines again, not believing the truth behind them. It was like something I read in a book. Or in my father’s newspaper. It wasn’t something that would ever happen to me. A tear slid right down my nose and plopped on to the page. It mixed with the brown ink and turned it a reddish colour. I blotted it quickly. It had taken me so long to get to this point in the letter. I didn’t want to have to start again.
I am beside myself. I pray every day, but so far there has been no sight of him. The police have not been much help. I think they have all but given up hope.
I am very upset and I am lonely here in London. I miss you and I pray for you and I hope that you are in good health and Patrick is doing his studies. You have my address now, so I hope that you will write.
All my love,
Molly.
I folded the letter carefully, holding it to my lips while I contemplated sending it or not. This gave away my hiding place, it let them know where I was. It opened the door to Mr McKenna coming back into my life.
I put the letter on top of the mantlepiece in front of the clock and I got back into bed and pulled the covers over my head. Writing the words down had done something to me. I realised that this terrible thing had really happened to me. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t something that was going to change if I slept long enough or starved myself or cried enough.
I’d been in denial, still in shock that my boy was gone.
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