by Marie Joseph
‘Carrie is getting married, so Mother needs you, Sarah. It would make us all very happy if you came back. With your son, of course,’ she added. ‘Westerley is more than big enough, and we all feel it would be a very suitable arrangement, especially as Nurse Tomkin told us you are under notice to leave this cottage.’
‘Well, Sarah?’ Ettie leaned forward. ‘What do you say? Will you at least think it over, dear?’ Then, getting no response from the still figure, she added, ‘We don’t want to upset you, Sarah. What’s troubling you so much, my dear? You must at least try to tell us. We have come because we want to help.’
For a long moment no one moved or spoke. Suddenly the back door opened and a young boy hurtled into the room, socks slipping down over muddy boots, thin jacket black with rain, blue eyes sparkling with mischief. As he hesitated, snatching his cap from his head, a shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds, transforming his barley-pale hair to a halo of gold.
Libby gasped in astonishment. Ettie jumped to her feet, clutching both hands together in front of her chest, swaying as the colour drained from her cheeks to leave her face a strange chalky white.
‘Go upstairs to your room, son!’ Sarah’s voice shattered the uncanny silence, rough with despair so terrible that it might have been a voice speaking from the grave.
‘But Mam . . .?’
Bewildered by the ring of faces, most of all by the sight of the small elderly lady rocking herself backwards and forwards as if she was barmy, Patrick stood his ground. ‘I was just going to . . .’
‘Upstairs!’ Sarah was on her feet advancing towards him. ‘These – these people will be going soon . . .’
Patrick stepped back as the moaning woman held out both her arms. With his blue eyes searching first one strange face then another, he said, ‘Are you all right, Mam? What’s happened? I’d rather stop down here with you.’
‘Patrick!’ Sarah’s voice was as sharp as the crack of a whip. ‘Upstairs! You and me will talk later. Do as you’re told!’
Stumbling in his muddy boots, half defiant and more than a little afraid, Patrick did as he was told, running up the uncarpeted stairs then closing the door of his room with a loud crash.
The sound coincided with Ettie’s release from her half-paralysed state of shock. Going over to Sarah, she took her by the shoulders and shook her with a force one would hardly have believed she was capable of.
‘That boy is Willie! Oh, dear God in heaven, that child is Willie’s son! He is my Willie as a little boy. Sarah! Your son is my grandson. Isn’t he?’
‘No! No, Mrs Peel! He’s not. He’s not!’
Sarah’s pathetic, almost hysterical denial was sliced away by a downward sweep of Libby’s hand as the teacher in her took over. In a firm, no-nonsense voice, she stated briskly, ‘Of course he is Willie’s son, Sarah. He’s the living image of the brother I once had. It was like seeing Willie come to life again. So let’s sit down and talk about it calmly.’
‘Yes. Calm down, Sarah, and you too, Mother. This isn’t doing you any good.’
At the sound of Harry’s quiet tones, Sarah dropped down into her chair, setting it rocking furiously. When she spoke her voice was still full of despair.
‘I knew there’d be no keeping it from you once you set eyes on him. That’s why I kept him away from you all these years!’
With her face wrenched out of shape, she turned to Ettie. ‘Oh, Mrs Peel, forgive me.’ Tears rolled from the blue eyes. ‘Willie never loved me, never really loved me, but it happened when he came home on that last leave. I was too frightened to tell you. Mr Peel would have killed me for being a bad girl with his son in his house, an’ it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t!’ She took a deep breath. ‘Willie never told you how it was out there in the trenches in France, Mrs Peel, because he knew you couldn’t have borne to listen. But he told me. An’ it was terrible! Willie wanted to spare you, but I listened, an’ I comforted him, as best I could, Mrs Peel.’
‘My grandson . . .’ Ettie began to speak as if she were quite alone, as if not a single word of Sarah’s pathetic confession had penetrated her understanding. ‘All this time, and I didn’t know. That lovely, lovely boy, my Willie’s son, and I never knew?’
‘But you can’t have ’im! He’s mine!’ Sarah gave a shout of anguish. ‘Since me mother died, he’s all I’ve got!’ She was looking directly at Libby now. ‘You think because you’ve a lot of money you can just come here and – and –’
‘Sarah!’ Ettie, all pretence at pride gone, went to kneel down on the cut-rug by the rocking chair. Libby opened her mouth to say something, but Harry silenced her with a look.
‘It’s all Nurse Tomkin’s fault,’ Sarah muttered. ‘She went back on her word. After she’d promised she went back on her word.’
‘Nurse Tomkin said nothing.’ Ettie’s normally soft voice rang with conviction. ‘Until that boy came through the door not one of us here today even guessed. Oh, Sarah! Listen to me, dear. Mr Peel is dead. It’s me, Mrs Peel, you are dealing with now, not my husband.’
Kneeling up straight she tried to pull the stiff unyielding young woman into her arms. ‘Think, Sarah. You would be coming to me as the daughter-in-law I never had, and Patrick . . . oh, my dear, I could give him so much. The best schools, the finest education money could buy.’
Sarah’s face peaked into lines of obstinacy. ‘But he’ll pass his scholarship, Mrs Peel. My son is clever. He won’t need no money to pay for his education. He’ll win his own way.’
‘But what about his clothes, his shoes, and his books?’ Libby could contain herself no longer. ‘It takes more than brains to keep a boy at a grammar school, Sarah.’
‘You’ll take him from me, Miss Libby!’ Sarah was shouting now. ‘I know you! Once you get a hold of him he won’t be mine no longer.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Libby said, then opened her eyes wide as Harry pulled her to her feet.
‘This is between Sarah and your mother,’ he said firmly. ‘We’ll go outside and wait in the car. Coming, Libby?’
When they had gone Sarah looked into Ettie’s upturned face and saw that the older woman had scarcely noted their departure. Her whole soul was in her pleading eyes. It was no longer mistress and servant; now they were merely two women meeting on common ground.
Taking both of Sarah’s hands in her own, Ettie said gently. ‘You are Patrick’s mother, dear. You would have first say in everything concerning him.’ Tenderly she shook the work-worn hands. ‘You trust me, don’t you?’
Sarah nodded, biting hard at her bottom lip. ‘Oh, yes. You was always good to me, Mrs Peel.’
‘Well then, dear?’
It was as though Ettie had stopped breathing as she waited for Sarah’s answer. She knelt there, small and dignified, her face still a chalky white and her eyes never leaving Sarah’s face. Sarah wavered.
‘And you wouldn’t change his name or nothing? There wouldn’t be no solicitor’s papers making him over to the Peels or anything?’
Ettie shook her head. ‘My house would be home for both of you, for as long as you wanted to stay – that’s all,’ she promised. ‘This I swear to you.’
For a long moment the only sound in the tiny room was the sudden shifting of a log on the leaping fire. Then getting up from her chair and going to the foot of the stairs. Sarah called out, ‘Patrick? Come down here. That’s a good boy.’
When Ettie joined Libby and Harry in the car her face was transfigured by a blinding joy that was almost tangible.
‘Let’s go home. I have a lot to do,’ Ettie said, her smile like a blessing.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘NOW WE CAN all be happy,’ Carrie said, holding hands with Tom. Her eyes filled with mischief. ‘Oh, Tom, it’s just like the ending of a book where everyone walks off into the sunset.’
Tom grinned down at her, humouring her, loving her with such transparent devotion that Libby had to turn away. She ached to be tinged with the same kind of happiness, but there was always t
his feeling of restlessness, this disappointment, this certainty that somehow her life had taken a wrong turning.
She watched Harry talking to Tom Silver, easily, freely, and it came to her that if only Tom could have stayed as a dream-like shadowy lover in the background of her life, then her feelings for Harry would have been intensified. Fidgeting with the long rope of beads hanging down the front of her waistless dress, Libby frowned at the irrationality of this idea even as she accepted its truth.
She ached for Harry to look at her in the way Tom was staring at Carrie, and yet, if he had, she knew she would have met the look with indifference.
What was wrong with her?
The wedding took place at four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon in May. There were no church bells ringing, no choirboys in red surplices singing ‘O Perfect Love’.
Carrie’s dress was Macclesfield silk, Libby’s Chinese shantung, and they both wore hats shaped like the bells on a sprig of lily of the valley. Sarah’s straw hat was decorated by what looked like a field of poppies, daisies and cornflowers, and accompanied by Patrick in a neat grey suit, she was almost as radiant as the bride.
Back at Westerley for the quiet family reception, Patrick was placed by Ettie’s side at the big table in the dining room, a table set with cold ham, salads and a huge joint of underdone beef.
Carrie managed to have a quiet word with Sarah. ‘We’re lucky to have such a good Catholic college in the town, aren’t we? Mother tells me Patrick has settled in so well his masters are already talking about his future. Has he any ideas of his own about what he wants to be?’
‘An officer in the army,’ Sarah said at once, then her round face went pink with pleasure. ‘Oh, Miss Carrie, Patrick can’t hear enough about his father, and Mrs Peel is only too happy to oblige. They spend hours, the two of them, poring over old photographs.’ She bit her lip. ‘I did wrong not telling him the truth, but then you see, I never realized how . . .’ she struggled to find the right word, ‘how uncomplete he felt not knowing.’
Carrie patted her arm. ‘Well, one thing is certain, Sarah. There’ll never be another war in Patrick’s lifetime. Not after the last one.’
‘Yes, that’s a blessing.’ Sarah crossed herself furtively over the bodice of her crêpe-de-Chine two-piece. ‘That would be something I couldn’t bear.’ Then she sat up straight as Harry began his well-rehearsed speech. ‘Ssh,’ she said to no one in particular.
The telephone rang just as the speech ended and Ettie’s new maid, a young weaver from the mill, beckoned importantly from the doorway.
‘It’s for you. Doctor,’ she announced, and with an apologetic glance in his wife’s direction Harry walked quickly into the hall.
‘Oh, no!’ Libby gave a deep sigh. ‘You’d think his patients would leave him alone, just for today.’
But when Harry came back into the room his expression was grim.
‘There’s been an accident at Crowhead colliery, a roof fall a long way out with ten men trapped.’ He looked straight at Libby. ‘I have to go, love.’
Then he turned to Ettie. ‘I’m truly sorry, but I’ll have to leave right this minute. I have things to collect from the surgery.
‘I’m coming with you.’ Libby moved towards him. ‘We have put upon Nurse Tomkin’s good nature long enough as it is.’ Her smile was brilliant. ‘I was going to say “be happy”, but I don’t think either Carrie or Tom needs that advice.’
Before Harry had turned the car out of the drive, she turned to him in exasperation.
‘Why you, Harry? That colliery is five miles away. Why pick on you, for heaven’s sake?’
Harry pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator. ‘They are going to need all the help they can get, by the sound of it. It’s two hours’ walking to this particular coal face, apparently, and with so many trapped men who might need medical attention on the spot, and me being on call –’ He glanced sideways at Libby. ‘You could have stayed on at the party, though.’
‘They didn’t need me.’ Beneath the flower-pot hat her face was set and bleak. ‘Mother has Patrick, and Carrie has Tom. I almost felt it was a double celebration, didn’t you?’
Harry collected what he needed and rushed out of the house with his bag. She followed him to the door. Smiling at her, he turned to wave, and as he slid behind the wheel she saw that his wedding posy, a white carnation, was still fixed in his buttonhole. A sudden premonition caught at her breath.
‘Take care!’ Libby’s words were lost in the sound of the car’s engine, leaving her to go slowly into the house and close the door behind her.
At nine o’clock, when he had been away for over three hours, she went up to the nursery to tell Nurse Tomkin that she would see to the baby, should she wake up and demand a bottle. Like her mother before her, Libby’s baby slept in snatches, ignoring set rules and going her own way.
Libby looked down at the small sleeping face. ‘I must have something to do,’ she explained.
Nurse Tomkin’s eyes glittered behind her spectacles. ‘I once saw a man hurt real bad. He was a fitter though, not a miner. There was a valve needed opening so they put a plank over the cage to the shaft wall. He fell off it, and they brought what was left of him up in a bag.’ She sniffed. ‘Nobody knows the conditions those men have to work under. It’s no wonder they came out on strike, and for what? I’ve heard it rains like the clappers down some pits, and do you know what they pay them extra for getting soaked? A shilling a day! I ask you!’
Listening to her, Libby felt the blood drain from her face. She shook her head. ‘But the doctor won’t have to go down. The rescue party will have their own doctor. If my husband is needed at all it will be at the surface.’
At eleven o’clock, with the baby content after an extra bottle, Libby went to the window of the front bedroom, lifted the curtain and stared down into the quiet road.
She had not heard the rain, but now the pavements were shining black and a soft wind sighed in the trees. Too uneasy to undress, she wandered downstairs, moved the guard away from the dying fire, then built it up again with coal from the brass scuttle in the hearth.
Harry had said it was almost two hours’ walk to the coal face where the men lay trapped . . . Libby shuddered as she watched the flames begin to lick round the shiny nuggets. At the time of the strike she had read how the miners worked on their knees, and sometimes lying flat on their stomachs, with sixty tubs to fill before they reached anything approaching a living wage. At the time she had been horrified; now it came back to her with a fresh shock.
No wonder Tom Silver felt as he did . . . and yet . . . it was Harry who was actually risking his life for the miners, not Tom. Libby looked at the clock on the mantelpiece ticking the slow minutes away. Leaning her head back she closed her eyes. Her thoughts were leading her down avenues she had never explored before. Unlike Tom Silver, Harry had no platform on which to stand and shout the odds. All Harry did was go about his daily routine, soothing the sick and closing the eyes of the dead.
She slept for a while, then started up when she thought she heard a car outside. But there was nothing but the silent avenue with its trees waving dark branches against the night sky. Back by the fire she sat motionless for another hour, then went to sit in the darkened nursery, falling asleep, waking, then falling asleep again until a grey finger of light touched the window.
‘Is the doctor not back yet?’ Even as the baby gave her first experimental cry, Nurse Tomkin came through the door with her grey hair straggling round her shoulders, a brown woollen dressing gown hugged tightly to her squat figure.
‘Something has happened to him.’ Libby’s eyes were bleak with a feverish worry. ‘I knew something terrible was going to happen at the wedding tea when everyone was so happy. When the telephone rang I knew I was right. It doesn’t pay to be too happy. Being too happy is asking for trouble.’
If Nurse Tomkin had known Libby as a child, then as a young unmarried woman, she would have known this was the old dramat
ic, fanciful Libby talking, but even so, the nurse knew there was no point in arguing with her when she was in this mood. So when Libby said she was going to ring for a taxi and go out to the colliery, she merely nodded. But when she was alone once again with the baby, Nurse Tomkin voiced her thoughts out loud to herself.
‘She’s feared for him now she thinks she might be losing him. There’s some who need a bit of a shake-up before they realize which side their bread’s buttered on.’
They let Libby through the gate and into the colliery yard when she told them who she was. Walking over to the pit head she joined a small knot of women standing quietly in the falling rain.
‘They’ve got nine of them up, love.’ A woman with a hard face gentled into resignation moved her hand from beneath a grey fringed shawl and laid it for a moment on Libby’s arm. ‘The one left down there has a pick through his body. It had to come out, and when the doctor went down there was a second fall, and now they’re trapped good and proper. Three of them – the poor bugger with the steel inside him, the doctor and the manager.’ She nodded. ‘Oh, aye, the manager’s down there for all he’s supposed to be a hard nut.’
Libby felt sick; she could have been sick right there. She knew the doctor was Harry. She had known even before she came, but she went to ask just the same, and as she ran across the yard to the office she saw, lying on the cobblestones, the white carnation, muddied and flattened, trampled by rushing feet. She saw herself in her bell-shaped wedding hat slotting it into Harry’s lapel, and she remembered how she had turned her face away so that his kiss had landed on her cheek instead of her lips.
‘Oh, Harry . . .’ She wanted to scream out her terror. She wanted to demand that the rescue party, still in their sweat and pit clothes, take her down with them. But knowing that would be impossible, she stumbled away to stand with the women, her beige coat with its ermine collar a sharp contrast to their sombre clothing.