We walked along the street together until we got to the end. He yawned and stretched and then leaned against the wooden railings.
‘Oh dear, it’s been a long night. I shall be glad to get to my bed. So how can I help you? Who are you? What’s your name?’
‘I – I have several names. Folk used to call me Hetty, but I know my real name is Sapphire – though just of late I have been called Emerald.’
‘My, my, you go in for some very fancy names! And what is your business with me, Hetty-Sapphire-Emerald?’ He said the three names solemnly enough, but his eyes crinkled, his mouth twitched, and I knew he was laughing at me.
I took a deep breath. ‘I – I think I might be kin of yours,’ I said.
He stared at me. ‘What, some long-lost cousin or something of that sort? Are you Hetty-Sapphire-Emerald Waters?’
‘No, sir. I have taken the surname of Battersea, after my mother. She was Ida – but I don’t think that was her real name.’
‘My goodness, this is too much of a riddle for me. I’m not sure what you’re saying, child.’
‘I’m saying that you once knew my mother – more than fifteen years ago, when she was a young girl, little and slight like me, with blue eyes just like mine.’
He was looking straight at me now, standing very still.
‘I don’t know what she was called, but she was a local girl and she loved you with all her heart. You and she were sweethearts.’
‘Evie,’ he said. ‘Evie Edenshaw.’ He grabbed hold of my shoulder. ‘You know Evie? Will you tell me where she is? I would dearly love to see her again.’
Evie Edenshaw! Each syllable rang like a bell in my head. So this was Mama’s real name!
‘She’s . . . not here. She passed away this summer. She died of the consumption,’ I said, struggling not to cry.
His eyes filled too. ‘Poor little Evie,’ he murmured. Then he looked at me again – a long searching look. ‘Are you telling me . . .?’ he murmured.
I unwound the shawl from my head and let my hair whip free in the wind. ‘I am Evie’s daughter,’ I said. ‘I think I am your daughter.’
‘I wondered – dear God, how I wondered if that was the case. I went sailing halfway across the world, selfishly wanting adventure. At first I barely gave Evie a second thought. I had new sweethearts wherever the ship docked – but none proved as sweet and spirited as your mother. I sickened of them all, I sickened of life at sea. I came back two years later, wondering if she’d waited for me, if she’d maybe take me back – but she was gone, and no one knew what had happened to her. There was talk, of course. Some said her own folk had turned her out. I begged them to tell me where she was but they wouldn’t even speak to me. So she was having a child – my child?’
‘She couldn’t keep me, so she gave me to the Foundling Hospital in London,’ I said.
‘My child, brought up a foundling?’ he said, and now his tears spilled.
‘But Mama came to work at the hospital and watched over me, and when I found out the truth we snatched precious moments together. We vowed that one day we would live together in our own little house, but then poor Mama got sick and – and now I am all alone,’ I said.
‘You are not alone any more,’ he said. He reached out and drew me close, his strong arms around me. ‘You are my child and you shall live in my house with me.’
4
I BREATHED IN my father’s strange smell of sea and wool and fish, and wept against his chest. He held me tightly. I think he was crying too. The sun suddenly came out between black clouds and the gulls screamed over the grey shoals of fish. I felt dazzled, deafened, unable to think clearly at all. I simply clung to my father as if I would never let him go. I had found him at last. My heart was beating so fast I felt faint, as if Mama herself were stirring within me . . .
Yes, Hetty, yes! We are a family at last.
I saw myself living cosily with my dear long-lost father. I would care for him and cook for him and clean for him. I would be the most dutiful daughter in the world, and he would love me and protect me and go out fishing every day. Oh, we would live so happily, just the two of us . . .
‘Come, Hetty. I think you had better be Hetty here. Sapphire and Emerald sound a little too glittery and fancy for fisher-folk. Is that all right? Can I call you Hetty, child?’
I nodded. Even Mama had struggled to call me Sapphire. I did not care for Hetty now, but I didn’t truly mind what my father called me – and there was such gruff affection in the way he said my homely name.
‘And what shall I call you?’ I asked.
‘Why, Father, of course,’ he said.
He pronounced it Feyther, so I said ‘Yes, Feyther,’ copying him as best I could.
He roared with laughter at me. ‘That’s right, we’ll have you talking with a Monksby brogue before the week is out,’ he said. ‘Come then, Hetty. You must meet the rest of your family.’
I stared at him. ‘My family?’ I repeated.
‘I have a wife, Hetty, and a son and a daughter.’
My chest tightened so I could scarcely breathe. ‘They’re your family,’ I said, my dreams evaporating. ‘They won’t want me!’
‘Of course they will. They will do as I say,’ he said resolutely.
He rested his huge hand on my shoulder and steered me back to the crowd at the harbour edge. Women had set up crude fish stalls, large planks resting on two barrels, and were gutting the fish with startling speed, their sharp knives gleaming in the sunlight.
Father looked down and fingered Lizzie’s shawl.
‘Should I tie it round my head again?’ I said.
‘No, no – folk will put two and two together soon enough,’ he said.
So we walked along the road side by side, a red-haired man and a small red-haired girl. Gradually all the fisher-folk stopped their busy work and stared at us. The women gutting the fish stared at us too – and then they looked over at the woman at the end, in a blue scarf and a dark green dress. She was tanned by the sun and wind, her cheeks naturally rosy. She went red all over as we approached.
‘Can I have a word, Katherine?’ Father said softly.
She looked up at him. ‘What are you playing at, Bobbie?’ she said. Her eyes flicked sideways. ‘Who is she?’
I saw Father swallow nervously, the Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. ‘This here is Hetty, Katherine. We need to talk. Could you come home with us?’
‘What? What’s all this nonsense? What are you doing with this girl? Of course I can’t come home. I’m in the middle of gutting your fish, you fool,’ she said.
Father’s fists clenched. ‘I’ll thank you not to take that tone with me,’ he said. ‘Now come home, Katherine.’
She stood up, still clutching her sharp knife. It glistened with fish entrails. She looked as if she wanted to stick it straight in me.
‘Could you call Mina from the shore? And where’s Ezra? Is he playing truant from school again? Look for him on Long Beach. I need you all at home,’ Father said. ‘Come, Hetty.’
He spoke with calm authority, but I could feel him trembling as he turned me round and steered me onwards. I heard an excited babble behind us as folk repeated what he’d said. I peered round. Katherine was staring after me as she hurried down to the beach.
‘Oh, Father, she hates me,’ I said.
‘Don’t be silly, Hetty – she doesn’t even know you yet,’ he said.
I could not understand how he had made such a bad choice of wife. I thought of my pale little mama with her bright blue eyes and dainty ways. This woman was big and coarse and pink in the face – maybe a handsome woman, but certainly a hard one. The last woman in the world I wanted as a stepmother.
‘How old are Mina and Ezra?’ I asked.
‘Mina is twelve and Ezra seven. Mina takes after her mother but Ezra is a chip off my block, with hair as red as mine – and yours. It will be a surprise for them to have a new ready-made sister. Mina has often said how much she longs for a
sister, so she will surely be happy – and Ezra too. He’s a fine lad, though he runs a little wild.’
I listened without commenting. I already admired and respected my tall strong father, but I couldn’t help feeling he was soft in the head. I feared Mina and Ezra would hate me – and it was clear how their mother felt.
If only Father had stayed true to the memory of Mama. Why did he have to saddle himself with this new family? We walked along the cobbled lane together, Father asking me endless questions about Mama and my life in the Foundling Hospital. I was normally happy enough to tell stories of those bleak, loveless years, the strict rules and regulations, the meagre portions of food, the unkind matrons – but each hardship I touched on made Father wince and moan, as if he had personally inflicted these deprivations on me. I found myself downplaying my little dramas, doing my best to reassure him. The hospital might have been grim but they’d given me a decent education and taught me how to sew and scrub, and I could sing my way straight through the hymnbook. And above all I had had Mama near me, watching over me, sneaking me extra treats and titbits.
But mentioning Mama was torture for both of us, especially when I talked of her last few weeks in the sanatorium wing of the hospital at Bignor.
‘If only I’d known,’ Father groaned, actually hitting his head with his clenched fist.
‘You mustn’t take on so,’ I said. ‘I looked after her.’
‘And I’ll look after you, child, no matter what,’ said Father.
No matter what was clearly Katherine.
We went down a winding lane – Home Lane, the very name a wonderful omen – to the very end cottage. It was weathered brick with a rust-tiled roof, two rooms upstairs and two down.
Father opened the green front door, looking bashful. ‘It’s not very grand, lass,’ he said. ‘There’s nowt fancy in our home, but Katherine keeps it spotless.’
It seemed a little cheerless too. The meagre furniture stood at rigid angles, the clock ticked on an empty mantelpiece, the rug was limp with many beatings. There was only one picture on the white-washed walls, a painting of the sea with a tall ship on the horizon. I wondered if Father stared at it every day and wished he was sailing back around the world.
He shyly showed me the two rooms upstairs – a double bed for him and Katherine, two little truckle beds for Mina and Ezra in the smaller room. I wondered where I would sleep. Father seemed to be pondering that too. The house seemed to be shrinking around us.
‘It’s not much to show for a life of hard work,’ he said. ‘I dare say the house where you were a servant was much grander, Hetty.’
I thought of Mr Buchanan’s grand, tall house, each room crammed with fine furniture, ornaments crowded on every surface, and so many paintings on the walls you could barely make out the design of the wallpaper.
‘I’d much rather be here with you . . . Father,’ I said. It sounded so strange to call him by that name and it made us both blush.
We sat on the battered chairs and waited for Katherine to come home with the children.
I heard a boy’s voice piping all the way down the lane. ‘But why, Mam? Leave go of me, you’re hurting me! Why are you so cross? I’ve not done nowt!’
Then the front door was flung open, and there was Katherine, striding in furiously, with a small red-haired boy in torn breeches and broken boots. A neater girl in an apron and headscarf edged her way into the house too, staring at me. She might well have been one of the girls picking flithers from the rocks.
Katherine slammed the front door shut and stood breathing heavily, arms akimbo. I wondered if her knife was still in her apron pocket.
‘How dare you make a spectacle of this family!’ she hissed at Father. ‘Folks’ tongues are wagging fit to drop out of their heads. What are you doing, parading around with this . . . this girl?’
‘Calm down, Katherine,’ said Father. ‘Mina, Ezra, come here. This is Hetty. Say hello nicely to her. She’s travelled a long way to find us.’
‘Who is she, Pa?’ said Ezra.
Mina said nothing, peering at me from behind her mother. She was tall for twelve, half a foot bigger than me, with broad shoulders and big arms. Stray fair curls peeped out from beneath her shawl – but there was nothing else soft and wispy about Mina. She looked as if she could flatten me with one blow.
‘This is Hetty, children,’ said Father. ‘She is your sister.’
Katherine and Mina gasped, as if he’d said a swear word.
‘My sister?’ said Ezra, wrinkling his nose in simple puzzlement. ‘How can that be?’
‘Aye, how indeed!’ said Katherine. ‘What kind of a fool are you, Bobbie? This girl bobs up out of nowhere and spins you a sorry tale, and you take her every word as gospel! She’s no kin of mine – or yours.’
‘Katherine, I told you once. Don’t call me a fool, especially not under my own roof. I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, especially before the children. Mina, Ezra, this is your sister Hetty – and she’s come to live with us.’
‘Not in my house she’s not,’ said Katherine, folding her great arms. Mina folded hers too.
‘It’s my house and you’ll do as I say. Did you not promise to obey me the day we were wed?’ said Father.
‘You never wed this girl’s mother,’ said Katherine. ‘You can’t palm her children off on me – though I still think she’s playing a trick on you. She’s down on her luck and needs protecting, so she’s travelled as far as she can go and then cast her cap at the first man she’s seen with red hair.’
This was in effect so near the truth that I felt myself flushing.
‘See! Look at her!’ said Katherine triumphantly. ‘You’ve still got sea mist in your eyes, Bobbie. She’s nothing like you, apart from the hair.’
‘She’s like . . . Evie,’ said Father.
‘Evie!’ Katherine spat viciously on her own floor. ‘I told you never to say that name to me again. I won’t have you mooning after that girl. She left you, Bobbie.’
‘No, she didn’t! My father left her – he went away to sea,’ I shouted. I saw Father hang his head. ‘Perhaps he did not know about me. But he went, and Mama was left, and turned out of her own home.’
‘And no wonder. She was a bad girl. We all knew she’d come to no good,’ said Katherine.
‘How dare you talk of Mama like that!’ I said, and I rushed at Katherine and pushed her hard in the chest.
‘I’ll teach you, you little spitfire,’ she said, and she slapped me so hard about the face I reeled back, staggering.
Father caught me and steadied me. Ezra burst out crying, but Mina clutched her mother protectively.
‘I’ve never once been a violent man, but if you raise your hand to her again, I swear I’ll floor you, Katherine,’ said Father.
‘That’s right, take her side against me, when I’ve been your good true wife all these years and you’ve only just this moment met up with this sly little minx who’s claiming you for a father. What proof do you have that she’s Evie’s child? Where’s Evie then?’
‘Hush, Katherine. Hetty’s told me she passed away this summer.’
‘Oh yes, very convenient. And she came toddling up to you and said, Please, sir, I’m Evie’s child and so that makes you my father.’
‘Well, not exactly. Hetty didn’t know her mother was called Evie. Apparently she’d taken another name down south.’
‘Oh my Lord! How can you be so gullible, Bobbie? The girl didn’t know her own mother’s name – and yet you’re still sure you’re her father?’ Katherine cried.
‘Yes I am,’ said Father, but his voice wavered and he looked at me again, as if for further proof.
‘I am yours, Father,’ I said, saying the word again proudly. ‘I knew you as soon as I set eyes on you – and I felt Mama in my heart telling me I was right.’
‘I’ve never heard such claptrap in my life,’ said Katherine. ‘You’ve gone soft in the head, Bobbie, listening to such foolishness. Send the girl p
acking, back to where she belongs.’
‘She doesn’t belong anywhere else,’ said Father. ‘She belongs here.’
‘And what of your own two proper children?’ said Katherine, picking Ezra up with one strong arm and putting the other round Mina’s shoulders. ‘Do you want this girl living with us?’
‘No, Mam. Send her away!’ said Mina.
‘I don’t like her. She talks funny and she looks queer and I don’t want her to have red hair. It’s only me and Pa who have red hair,’ Ezra sobbed, kicking his feet in fury against his mother’s hips.
‘Stop that baby nonsense, son,’ said Father. ‘I want you to act like a little man. And you, Mina, you’re old enough to understand. Think how Hetty must feel. What sort of a welcome are we giving her? Look at her – she’s shivering. Would you like a cup of tea, lass?’ He patted me on the shoulder and looked at Katherine.
‘Don’t expect me to make it for her!’ she said. ‘I’m off back to my work. Someone’s got to make some money if you’re going to bring home every little stray slut that tells you a string of lies.’ She pulled Mina by the arm. ‘You come too, our Mina. You’re having nothing to do with this girl, do you hear me?’
‘I don’t want nothing to do with her, Mam,’ said Mina. She walked to the door with Katherine.
Ezra started kicking again. ‘Put me down, Mam! I want Pa, I want Pa,’ he said, struggling.
‘Go to him then,’ said Katherine, shrugging him off. She slammed out through the front door with Mina.
We were left in the dark little living room, Father and Ezra and me, all of us staring wretchedly at each other.
‘Pa?’ said Ezra uncertainly.
‘Come here, son. Never you mind your mam. She’s had a shock, little laddie. Don’t look so worried, you’ve done nowt wrong – for once! Come now, we’ll fix a little meal for us, you, me and Hetty.’
‘I can fix it, Father. I’m an excellent cook,’ I said eagerly. ‘I can make apple pies second to none. Shall I make us a pie?’
‘A pie, eh? Well, maybe on Sunday – but I was thinking more in terms of soup, lass. I usually have a big bowl when I come back from fishing. It warms me up a treat. I expect Katherine has the makings of it in the pot.’
Emerald Star (Hetty Feather) Page 4