Tilly Trotter Widowed (The Tilly Trotter Trilogy)

by Cookson, Catherine

  ‘’Tis better this way; but it’s odd that he should have to die in your house . . . Aw Tilly!’ Even the way he sighed on her name she took to be a condemnation of that which was in her and which could not be named.

  Her back stiffened slightly and her voice conveyed the stiffness as she said, ‘Would . . . would you tell her . . . her mother’ – she inclined her head towards the bedroom door – ‘she’s needed?’

  If he noticed her change of manner he ignored it and asked, ‘How is the lass?’

  ‘In a bad state, I should say.’

  A sharp cry came from behind the closed door and he turned abruptly and hurried away leaving Tilly standing where she was voicelessly praying now: Don’t let it happen to the girl. She wasn’t thinking at this moment of the effect on Lucy Bentwood should she lose both her husband and her daughter, but of her own son and the burden he would have to bear if Noreen’s death came about through the carrying of his child and the hardship she must have endured during these past months.

  As Lucy passed her they exchanged a glance but did not speak, and when Steve, reaching out, opened the door for them the scream from the bed hit them and caused all their faces to move in protest . . .

  As the late dawn broke the child was born. It was a girl and barely alive, but as it gave its first weak cry Noreen Bentwood joined her father.

  Fifteen

  The village was again agog. Nothing seemed to bring it alive as much as the happenings in the Manor surrounding . . . that one. There had been shipwrecks in Shields when people standing helpless on the shore had watched men drown; there had been cases of cholera, enough to cause widespread apprehension of coming epidemics; there had been pit strikes; there had been strikes in the shipyards when the Jarrow men became a ferocious fighting horde, their anger ignited by injustice. Then there had been the local scandals. The daughter of a prominent businessman living not far from the village had run off with a stable hand, and she just fresh out from a convent education, and he not able to read or write, so it was said. And yet all these things great and small seemed to fade into insignificance whenever something occurred . . . up there, through . . . that one. And now God above! Would you believe it, Farmer Bentwood searching for his daughter finds her working in the kitchen of a brothel, so it was said, and although her belly’s full with the blind one’s bastard he brings her home, at least makes the effort to. And she must have been willing enough to come with him. But then what happens, some evil spirit guides him on the wrong road and there that one’s fancy man finds them. And the result; aye dear God! – everyone in the village shook their head when they whispered the result – both to die in her house. But for the farmer to die there . . . well, it was weird for she had plagued that man all his life. Hadn’t she ruined his first marriage? And hadn’t she tried to shoot him once? And now finally he dies in her house, and his beloved daughter with him. Was it not weird to say the least, they asked of each other. And had anybody reckoned up the people who had died after coming into contact with her?

  They had waited to see her attend the funeral – it would have been just the brazen thing she would do – but she hadn’t been there. Her son had though. Yes, and walking unashamedly alongside the poor widow, overshadowing her own son Eddie.

  The villagers didn’t go on to say that afterwards Lucy Bentwood had returned not to the farm but to the Manor; but they were up in arms at the fact that young Eddie had gone back and sacked Randy Simmons. Now what did you think of that, and him being on that farm since he was a lad? He had been given notice to quit his cottage an’ all, no pension. Of course, everyone knew that Randy wouldn’t starve, he had feathered his nest in one way or the other over the years, but that wasn’t saying he should be put out of his cottage and no compensation. They were surprised at young Eddie though. But likely he had only been carrying out his mother’s orders, for it was well known she never had much use for Randy.

  But when it was all boiled down, it was still all connected with that one up there.

  They sat one at each side of the fireplace in the drawing room, each with a cup of tea in her hand, and when Lucy sipped at hers Tilly followed suit.

  There were words to be said, matters to be arranged, but she couldn’t find an opening. Yesterday this woman had buried her husband and her daughter, and the fault lay here in this house, for if her son had not given this woman’s daughter a child then likely she would not have run away, and so there would have been no need for Simon to go in search of her. The snow would not then have got them, and they would have been alive now.

  Only an hour ago when Willy had said for the countless time that he didn’t want to give up the child, she had been forced to make him share the burden of the coffins he had followed yesterday. Unlike herself promising Matthew that she wouldn’t marry again, Willy had said that he had given Noreen no answer to her request that he’d let her mother have the child because at the time he was stunned by the thought that she knew she wouldn’t survive the birth.

  Tilly was startled out of her thinking when Lucy said quietly, ‘Don’t carry the burden for what has happened on your shoulders, nor let your son carry it; it was inevitable. I don’t know what Simon had promised her in order to get her to return home but I feel she would have demanded that in no way would he do any harm to your son. And knowing him, he would have promised her this whilst at the same time being determined to wreak vengeance for what had happened to his daughter. Although he had not known it, he had been in love with her. Oh yes, yes’ – she nodded towards Tilly’s widening eyes – ‘he had in a way put her in your place.’

  ‘Oh no, no! You’re wrong there. He ceased to care for me many, many years ago.’

  ‘He had never ceased to care for you.’

  They stared at each other in silence.

  ‘He was besotted with you. It was a bitter knowledge I had to accept, and it would have been easier to bear if he had acted normally and not tried to erase his feelings through hate, false hate.’

  Remembering the last time she had looked down on Simon Bentwood’s face and his words to her, Tilly was forced to say, ‘I . . . I think you’re mistaken. His hate was real, not simulated.’

  ‘Then why did he die calling for you?’

  Tilly made a movement to rise to her feet, then resumed her seat and, her head moving slowly from side to side, she said, ‘It must have been in delirium because at our last meeting he told me exactly what I was worth to him, and his meaning was plain: he had wasted his life following the dross while ignoring the gold that was you.’

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘Yes. And he meant it, and had he been spared to live you would certainly have come into your own.’ Tilly looked down now on Lucy’s bent head whose muttered words were scarcely audible: ‘I stopped loving him a long time ago but I still cared for him and his needs. And then I stopped caring. That was the worst part, I stopped caring. I . . . I loved my daughter, yet in a way I was jealous of her, for I knew if he had had to make the choice who would have the last crust in a famine, he would have given it to her. Strange’ – she raised her head now – ‘he never cared anything for his son. Most men long for a son. And the boy was aware of his neglect from when he was a child. And I know now, and it is strange that I should say this, but my son is glad that his father’s gone because his fear has been buried with him. He was afraid of him, you know.’

  Lucy now took another sip from the almost cold tea; then putting the cup and saucer down on the table that stood between them, she said, ‘At times I’ve pitied myself because I was being forced to live a life without love, and I envied you; but now I know that my life has been like a calm sea compared with yours and the injustices you have been made to suffer. Beautiful women like you have to pay the price for their beauty. In your case I think it’s been too much, so what I say to you now, I said before, throw off any burden you might feel concerning my loss, because I shan’t be unhappy: I have my son who I know loves me dearly, and because of your son’s con
sideration I have a granddaughter to bring up. At the same time though, I shall remember that she has another grandmother here and also a father. And now I must be getting back.’

  Tilly watched Lucy take the napkin from her knee and fold it up before laying it gently on the corner of the table. She watched her dust her fingers against each other, adjust the bodice of her black taffeta blouse, smooth down the sides of her thick black cord skirt; then as she slowly rose to her feet, Tilly rose also and impulsively now she held her hands out towards this woman who had suffered through her for years. And when she felt them taken and gripped the tears sprang to her eyes. They stared at each other for a moment in silence, until Lucy said thickly, ‘I’ll away and get her then.’ And to this Tilly, being unable to speak, merely nodded.

  Left alone, Tilly turned and stood gazing down into the fire. She knew that she should go in search of Willy for it was no easy thing she had persuaded him to do, and she knew if she faced the truth that persuading him to relinquish his claim on the infant was at bottom her own desire to be rid of the child, for at this stage of her life she didn’t want to take on any more responsibility and certainly not that of an infant, for it would be herself who would have to bear the responsibility of its upbringing. Its presence, too, in the house would have been an obstacle to the plan that was forming in her mind, if it was not already formed, but which she would not at the moment bring to the fore. Even so, knowing all this, she still asked herself if she was really wise in letting the child go, for its presence might fill the gaping years ahead. Anyway it would always be near for what she meant to do was to give the freehold of the farm to Lucy and her son. This would achieve two things. It would ensure that her grandchild would always be near at hand, but more so it would go a long way to easing her conscience.

  It was almost the New Year again and Steve had not asked for an answer to his ultimatum. Of course, he wouldn’t, not under the circumstances.

  He had been very good during this whole unfortunate business; in fact, for one period he seemed to be running the house, quite unintentionally she realised, for he was not trying to show her that he was capable of acting as her regent. Anyway, when he came for his answer it would be the same that she could have given him months ago in the cottage.

  Of all the things that had happened to her emotionally in her life she knew Steve’s defection was the most painful thing she’d had to endure. It was as if they had been married for years and that he had suddenly told her he had another woman . . . and had had her for some long time.

  She closed her eyes tightly on the thought of how deep had become her jealousy of his daughter.

  Sixteen

  She said to Willy, ‘I don’t think I can make the journey to Liverpool to meet Josefina; you’ll have to go with Ned.’

  ‘But she’ll think it odd.’

  ‘No, she won’t. Tell her I’m not feeling very well, she’ll understand.’

  ‘It’s a long way to come just to be greeted by me.’ Willy was sitting aimlessly in the big chair, one arm hanging over the side, his fingers moving slowly in the long hair of the dog at his feet, and Tilly wondered how long it would be before he would realise how much Josefina loved him. Sometimes she wondered if he already realised it. Last week he had suddenly said, ‘Only five more days and she should be here – that’s if the boat docks as expected. It’ll be like old times.’ Then he added, ‘Can one really relive old times?’

  ‘You can but try,’ she had answered.

  ‘She must have been very unhappy over there to want to come back because when she left she was so adamant that she would never return . . . I missed her, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you did. And I did too.’

  ‘I think I’ll start at the mine again once she’s settled in. I can’t just sit here idling my days away. By the way, Steve hasn’t been this week, has he?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was he at the meeting on Friday?’

  ‘No; he has gone off for a long weekend with some friends.’

  ‘Have you two really quarrelled?’

  ‘No; why should we?’

  ‘Oh, Mama, don’t treat me like a fool. I’ve loved too, remember, I know what it’s like, and Steve’s love for you must be a very unusual love to have served you all these years.’

  ‘Well, he’s not going to serve me much longer.’

  There, it was out.

  ‘What!’ The slackness left his body, he was sitting straight up in the chair. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s got the offer of a new post, with Coleman’s firm.’

  ‘Coleman’s the engineers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he’s going?’

  ‘Yes; as far as I know he’s going.’

  ‘When did all this come about?’

  ‘Oh, some time ago.’

  ‘I can’t believe it. Did he actually tell you this?’

  ‘Yes, Willy, he actually told me this. And what you don’t know, Willy, is that my dear friend has for some years been moving in high places. He has a daughter . . . ’

  ‘What! Steve has a daughter?’

  ‘Yes; she’s a full-grown woman, over thirty, and she was brought up by the Colemans, and from there married into the Ryde-Smithsons. You don’t get much higher than the Ryde-Smithsons.’

  ‘Steve! Our Steve?’

  ‘Yes, Steve. Our Steve.’

  ‘Have you met his daughter?’

  ‘Yes.’ Tilly watched him sink back into the chair and nod his head slowly as he said, ‘So that’s what it’s all about. Well! Well! Talk of surprises, I wouldn’t have believed it. No wonder you have been feeling down. I’m sorry.’ He pulled himself to his feet and made his way towards her, and when his arms came about her she lay against him for a moment, saying with a break in her voice, ‘Such is life, Willy; it’s . . . it’s full of surprises.’

  ‘And you’ve had more than your share. Well, I never thought he’d desert you, no matter how big the carrot was. I’m amazed, really I am . . . ’

  There was a tap on the door and Biddle entered, saying, ‘Mr McGrath has called, ma’am.’

  ‘Speak of the devil.’ The words were muttered before she nodded towards Biddle, saying, ‘Show him in, please.’ Then quickly she turned to Willy, saying, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Into the library. I don’t want to be in on this, I might forget how good he’s been to me and say things I’d be sorry for later.’ He now turned from her and groped his way steadily down the long drawing room to the door at the end, and as he went out of it Steve entered the room from the other end.

  He gave no immediate greeting until he was standing in front of her, and then some seconds passed before he said, ‘Nice to see the sun out, isn’t it, even though it’s struggling?’

  ‘Yes’ – she turned her head towards the long window – ‘we could do with some sunshine.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m all right . . . Sit down.’ She pointed to the chair opposite, and when he had sat down she resumed her own seat.

  He was looking very spruce, very smart. He was wearing a new suit, she noticed, pepper-and-salt colour and of a good tweed. He had short gaiters over the tight trouser-bottoms; his boots were brown and highly polished. At his neck he was sporting a gold tie-pin in the shape of a riding crop. His hair was well brushed, still brown on top but greying at the temples. His face was lined but more with character than with age. Yes, he would cut a good figure in the society in which he was about to move; his daughter would have no need to apologise for him, oh no.

  That he was returning her appraisal was given with his next words, ‘You look peaky,’ he said.

  Her back stiffened still further. ‘Well, if you remember I’ve been, in fact we’ve all been, through rather a trying period.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ He nodded pleasantly at her. ‘I could say we have. Yes, I endorse that.’

  I endorse that. He was using words that would fit into his new way of life.
The bitterness gathered in her, forming a knot in her chest, not a little with the knowledge that there were worlds dividing the once-adoring lad and this sophisticated man.

  ‘Are you up to talking business?’

  ‘Yes, I’m up to talking business.’

  ‘Good.’ He was smiling at her again. His whole attitude seemed to point to his being well satisfied with himself and when he said, ‘I’d better get on my feet, it’s usual, isn’t it, when one comes a-courting?’ Her mouth fell into a slight gape. He was making fun of her, and to say the least it was in very bad taste. She listened to him in amazement as he now said, ‘About me ultimatum.’

  Perhaps it was her irritation and feeling of annoyance that made her remark, even bitterly, to herself that in spite of his polish he still reverted to the idiom ‘me’.

  ‘What’s it to be?’

  She stared at him for almost a full minute before rising slowly from the chair and facing him and, as slowly, saying, ‘I think you’re already aware of the answer.’

  ‘Aye.’ He looked to the side and raised his eyebrows. ‘Yes, I felt that’s what you would say after the way I put it to you. I’m not surprised. Well now, that’s out of the way.’ He opened the last button of his jacket, pulled the points of his waistcoat down, then said, ‘Me other business. It’s about the cottage, I want to buy it.’

  Rage was rising in her. He had dismissed her refusal as the merest trifle, not worth a second’s consideration. She had never thought there would come a time when she would hate Steve McGrath almost as much as she hated his brother, but it was almost upon her. And he wanted to buy the cottage! She repeated now in cutting tones. ’You want to buy my cottage? You’re sure you don’t want to buy my mine too?’

  ‘Well, not at the present, Tilly; funds wouldn’t run to that.’ His smile broadened. ‘But I can manage the cottage and the alterations I have in mind.’