by Maggie Hope
‘There now,’ Havelock had said with some satisfaction, ‘you can’t get out of it, not when it’s public. You’ll show willing and wed the lass and think yourself lucky the Hunters don’t know the half of your wild carryings on – or if they do, they’re prepared to forget them. Do you hear me, my lad?’
‘Yes, yes, I’ve said I’ll marry her, haven’t I?’
Matthew, who was helping himself to grilled kidneys and bacon at the sideboard, carried his plate to the table and sat down. He stared at the food, his appetite deserting him. How the hell he’d got into this mess he didn’t know. The thought of being tied to Joan Hunter for the rest of his life was anathema to him. He wondered at himself, told himself to think of her money, which could make him independent of his father. If he could wrest any of the stuff from the girl. Trouble was, this last week Joan had shown a surprisingly strong will.
‘Of course,’ she had said, ‘we will live here with Mummy and Daddy. There’s loads of room, it’s bigger than Fortune Hall.’
‘But Father will expect us to live with him. After all, I’ll be working with him,’ Matthew had replied, but Joan had shaken her head, flatly dismissing the idea.
He sighed and pushed his plate away. Taking his cigarette case out of his pocket, he lit one and his father rustled the newspaper irritably.
‘Anyone would think it was your funeral being arranged, not a wedding,’ he growled.
‘Might as well be,’ muttered Matthew under his breath. Havelock threw the paper on to the table and glared at his son.
‘Damnation, Matthew! I don’t know what’s the matter with you. I’ve never known you to turn up your nose at money, not when it’s there for the taking. You have to get married some time, haven’t you? Here’s a local girl, daughter of the richest man in North Yorkshire, panting to marry you, though I cannot for the life of me think why. More, her father is prepared to indulge her, God help him. I’m telling you, you’ll marry her and put a good face on it or I’ll know the reason why! You’ve led a wild life until now, but it’s time you settled down. You’ll thank me for it in the future.’
Will I? thought Matthew. Will I really? Oh yes, the future looks rosy – rosy as hell. He stubbed the cigarette out on his plate, savagely pressing the end into the congealing bacon fat.
‘And use an ash tray!’ yelled Havelock. ‘Anyone would think you had never been taught how to behave. All the money it’s cost me for your education …’
‘My mother’s money,’ snarled Matthew, rising to his feet and striding to the door.
His father spluttered, face red as beetroot. ‘What did you say? Why, you young pup—’
Matthew turned back from the open door. ‘All right, all right, I’ll marry the girl! I said I would, didn’t I? Now, for God’s sake, leave me alone, will you?’
He strode through the hall and out of the front door, his father’s voice ringing in his ears. Getting into his car, he started the engine, misfiring twice before the wheels spun on the gravel and he was away. Not to the Hunters’ place, nor anywhere near it, though Joan was expecting him to discuss wedding plans. Wedding plans, be blowed! No, he was going to enjoy his last bit of freedom, he was certain of that. He thought of going into Whitby but the idea didn’t appeal.
In the end he drove across the moors recklessly, not caring where he went, only sure he had to satisfy this craving for Hetty, he had to find her, even if he only sat in his car and watched her. Oh yes, there was something about simply watching her, it was like a drug, he could watch her for hours. Even watch the house where she was, sometimes it was enough that she was inside. But this time he would be ready when he found her. He fingered the tablets in his jacket pocket. His mother’s. The doctor had begun prescribing them on top of the mixture she usually took at his father’s suggestion.
‘She doesn’t sleep properly,’ Havelock had said.
Matthew had had some idea they might come in handy to subdue Hetty, bring her round to his way of thinking.
A week later his father, going out in a hurry, left the key to his desk in the lock, something which never usually happened for Havelock Fortune was very close about his business. Matthew had soon found the folder with the names and home addresses of the domestic staff. Hetty’s was confirmed when Sally Dunn came back from her annual holiday and Matthew asked her how Morton Main was getting along. Sally had mumbled something and scuttled into the kitchen, the baize door swinging behind her. By, she didn’t want Master Matthew to take an interest in her, she had thought fearfully.
‘I’ll look after you, Hetty,’ said Matthew now as he sat, his arm around her, in the park. ‘We’ll go away today, now. I’ll take you to Staithes.’
‘I can’t, man, what about me family?’
He was going to have to do something about her grammar and that dreadful Durham accent, Matthew told himself. He held his tongue with difficulty. Careful now, careful, he must gentle her along.
‘What do you want to do, then?’
Hetty could hardly think straight. Matthew’s hand was clasped around her wrist, his arm felt like an iron band on her. She should get up and go, shake him off, run. She stole a glance at him, catching a hard, intent light in his blue eyes, quickly masked when he saw her looking.
‘I don’t know,’ she said nervously, pleating her skirt with trembling fingers. Oh, she had just found her family after so many years, she didn’t want to lose them! But she imagined what they would think if she went home and announced she was having a bairn. By, no, she couldn’t imagine it, it was too nightmarish. If she’d been getting married now, they could maybe forgive that, but not her with a fatherless bairn, no. Especially not after all the rumours and gossip which had gone the rounds of the pit rows of Morton Main about her. Mam and Da would never be able to hold their heads up in chapel again. But neither could she just walk out and break her mother’s heart all over again.
Hetty stared across the park, at the oak trees casting dark shadows now with the sun behind them. A mother and two young children came up the path, the youngest one wailing with tiredness. The mother had a bag with a towel sticking out of the top. They must have been plodging in the Gaunless, she thought abstractedly. The mother took her child’s hand and spoke softly to him. Hetty guessed they were going home to make the father’s tea, a nice ordinary family. She felt a stab of envy.
‘Well then, I’ll have to make up your mind for you,’ said Matthew, bringing her attention back to her own tangled life.
‘What do you mean?’ God help me, she cried silently, for I can’t help myself. A malaise was creeping over her. When Matthew was with her, holding her, touching her, all she could feel was his power over her. His dark power. She actually felt a stirring within her, a need for him. But how could it be love? She didn’t even like him. She tried to pull away from him, ineffectually. Oh Richard, where are you? she cried silently.
‘I’ll come home with you, I’ll talk to them.’ Matthew’s voice was soft, persuasive.
Hetty was filled with horror at the thought. ‘No, don’t do that, please!’
He laughed. ‘Come now, Hetty, if you don’t tell them, I will.’
‘I … I will. Don’t you go. I’ll tell them, I promise.’
‘All right, then.’
Matthew released his hold on her, and she got to her feet and walked rapidly away through the darkening park. He sat for a moment, thinking, then went after her, catching up with her at the entrance.
‘I’ll run you home,’ he said, and she shook her head.
‘No, I’ll get the bus.’ She had to get away, she could think on the bus. Her head was aching, the market place seemed unreal somehow.
‘It’s all right, I won’t go near the house.’ He was keeping pace with her. She tried to hurry but he took hold of her arm and turned her towards him. ‘You’re not going to get rid of me this time,’ he warned. ‘You weren’t thinking of hiding away from me again, were you, Hetty? You love me, and now you need me. And so does the kid. Every kid ne
eds a father.’
Matthew almost laughed aloud as he mouthed the trite words. Words from a picture he had seen at the flicks, in London that had been. But he could see that Hetty was gazing at him with new respect. That was the way then, appeal on behalf of her unborn brat.
She stopped walking and began swaying alarmingly. He had to hold her firmly to keep her upright. The market stalls were packing up and pieces of paper were blowing about in the wind which had sprung up. A brown carrier bag blew against her leg and was held there for a minute before lifting in a sudden eddy and spiralling across the pavement. Hetty put back her head the better to see him; his face swam before her eyes.
‘I … feel giddy,’ she gasped, and with a small moan collapsed altogether. Luckily, they were very close to the car. He picked her up in his arms, elation surging through him.
‘What’s up?’ asked the nearest stall holder. ‘You need any help there, mate?’
‘I can manage,’ said Matthew and, propping her up against the car, managed to open the passenger door and get her in. She lay against the seat, her head back. ‘Can you get a drink of water for my wife?’ he asked the stall holder. ‘You know how it is, she’s in the family way.’
He watched as the man took the top of a flask over to the tap by the town hall. Well, some things were meant to be, thought Matthew exultantly. He fingered the top pocket of his jacket, found the two phenobarbitone tablets he had filched from his mother’s drawer with some half-formed idea of drugging Hetty. The man brought back the cup just as she began to struggle to sit up properly.
‘Thanks, mate,’ said Matthew.
‘No trouble,’ said the stall holder. ‘My old woman flakes out all the time when she’s starting a babby, I know what it’s like.’
It was easy to get the tablets into Hetty’s open mouth and support her while he poured the water down her throat. She spluttered a little but drank the water and he was fairly sure the tablets were gone.
‘Hey, what’s that you’re giving her?’ asked the man, and Matthew turned to find him still standing by the car, looking concerned.
‘Oh, mind your own bloody business!’ yelled Matthew and threw the cup at him. Then he laid Hetty back against the seat again and started the car. The man jumped back and Matthew drove out of the market place and down Newgate Street, roaring away, making pedestrians leap for the pavement and other motorists swerve and honk their horns at him. A policeman stepped into the road and held up an authoritative hand then had to leap back as Matthew ignored him. They would be out of the town before the stupid ‘polis’, as Hetty called them, could do anything about it, Matthew exulted.
‘Morton Main, be buggered!’ he chuckled, and glanced quickly at Hetty’s pale face, the dark lashes sweeping her cheeks and sparkling intermittently as flashes of light came and went from the newly lit street lamps. He laughed aloud as he took the Darlington road out of town. Two hours, he calculated. No, an hour and a half at the most to get to Staithes. He wasn’t sure how strong the tablets were but she would sleep for that length of time, surely? After all, look what the drug did to his mother.
Chapter 22
Hetty sat at the kitchen table in the tiny wooden bungalow. The day was overcast and there was a cold wind blowing in from the sea. She shivered. She had been writing a letter but now she put down her pen and went over to the door and out into the garden so that she could see if Matthew was coming along the path. There was no sign of him, but then she had not really expected him until after dark; he was usually quite late getting back. Only a few holidaymakers were down on the beach, sheltering behind windbreaks. There were other bungalows like theirs dotted about the sandy hill which rose from the beach, most of them belonging to folk from the mill towns inland.
Pulling her cardigan round her, Hetty picked up the hoe which leant against the side of the bungalow and began weeding where she had left off the day before. Putting the garden in order was something she could do to occupy herself and at least the work kept her warm.
For this wasn’t Staithes, it wasn’t a village at all, just a collection of holiday cottages without water or electricity or any modern conveniences. Matthew brought in the supplies they needed from Staithes, which was further along the coast.
Hetty worked steadily until her back began to ache, clearing the weeds which were choking the few clumps of flowers growing in the neglected garden. Gradually, she was bringing some order to it, though she wasn’t sure why she bothered. Matthew had said he would marry her, hadn’t he? Well then, they would soon be moving to Fortune Hall. He had told her it was just a matter of time before his father came round.
‘Stay quietly here, Hetty,’ he had told her. ‘It’s not for long.’
Mind, she thought, arching her back to ease the ache, she had her doubts about Havelock Fortune accepting her into the family. She had begun to say so to Matthew but he had quelled her with a savage look. She laid a hand on her belly. Oh, you, she said silently to the little ’un inside. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. But she didn’t blame the babby really. No, it was her own fault, all of it.
Hetty wasn’t even sure how she came to be on this lonely hillside, miles away from her own folk. She had only a hazy recollection of getting here though she must have agreed to it. She’d been so queasy that day, she remembered that all right.
She should have been at home in Morton Main now, surrounded by her family, knitting tiny vests and bootees and cutting up a blanket and hemming it to make cot blankets. She should have been sitting with her mam and her gran, and all looking forward to the baby, and Gran and Mam would be free with their advice as their hands worked the needles. How sweet that would be! For a minute Hetty felt such an acute sense of loss she thought she couldn’t bear it.
‘What can’t be cured must be endured,’ Gran used to say. Hetty knew the true meaning of that now.
She gazed along the path. No sign of Matthew yet. She put down the hoe and went inside, closing the door behind her though the wind still whistled round its warped frame. She tipped water out of the bucket into the basin and washed her hands. Better fill the bucket before Matthew got home, he hated having to fetch it himself.
‘After all,’ he said, ‘you’re used to hard work, it won’t hurt you, but I’ve not been brought up to it the way you have.’
Sitting down and picking up her pen, she carried on with the letter she was writing.
‘It’s lovely here looking over the sea,’ she wrote. ‘Though we are only staying here for the summer, we intend to move inland when the weather turns this autumn. Oh, Mam, I’m sorry we couldn’t have told you about us before. I’m sorry I couldn’t have a proper wedding at the chapel and a wedding reception in the Sunday School. But we are going to get married, just as soon as we can. The baby will have Matthew’s name.’ Hetty paused before continuing, doubt assailing her. But Matthew had promised, hadn’t he? ‘Please write back, I miss you all.’ She signed the letter ‘All my love, Hetty’, with a row of x’s, before putting it into an envelope and addressing it.
She propped it on the battered chest of drawers, Matthew would take it to the post tomorrow, as he had done the other three she had written. Neither Mam nor Da nor Gran had written back, not even Frank. But Hetty knew how she had hurt them. Sometimes she cried about it. And maybe they would get in touch after she was married. After all, she must be a great shame to them living in sin as she was. If only she had been able to go home and explain to them herself that day instead of rushing away with Matthew the way she had. She couldn’t talk to him about it, though. He didn’t understand.
‘You need no one but me,’ he always said. ‘Forget it now, you’re like a baby crying for your mother. Your life is with me.’ And Hetty had learned not to cross him, never to upset him.
By the time she heard footsteps coming up the garden path, she had the paraffin stove working and a stew and vegetables cooking on the top. The room was warmer because of the lit stove and she had regained her spirits. She was sure the
family would write back to this letter, or if not then to the next she sent which should be an invitation to the wedding.
‘Matthew! The meal is almost read—’
Hetty’s greeting was cut short as he saw it was not Matthew at the door but his father. ‘Mr Fortune! Oh, I’m so glad to see you. Matthew has told you everything, has he? Oh, forgive me, do come in. I’m forgetting my manners, have a seat.’
Havelock’s lip curled. ‘I’ll come in, all right, seeing as this is my cottage. It’s you that will be getting out, you young trollop, you! You’re trespassing here and you’re lucky I don’t have the police on you.’
The harshness hit Hetty like a blow. She stared at him, the gladness changing rapidly to a sick dismay. ‘But … has Matthew not spoken to you? I’m not trespassing, Mr Fortune, Matthew brought me here.’
‘Aye, I thought as much.’ Havelock nodded his head as though confirming something. ‘A love nest, is it? Did you never think I’d have someone watching the place for me? The first thing Tommy Charlton did when he came and found someone was living here was let me know. A young woman, he said, and a man comes after dark. Well, it didn’t take much to know there was something going on, and I thought it might be Matthew, especially when the key was gone from my study.’ He stood before Hetty, hands on his hips, eyes like pebbles in his furious face.
Tommy Charlton. She’d heard the mother of that family on the beach call her husband Tommy. They had a bungalow a hundred yards further along the hillside.
‘But surely, Matthew—’
‘Matthew thought he had me fooled all right,’ snarled his father. ‘But he’ll have to get up a lot earlier in the morning to catch me napping.’
Darkness had almost enveloped the small kitchen except for the glow from the paraffin stove. Havelock moved with long familiarity to pick up the lamp from the table, taking off the globe and putting a match to the wick. The light lit up Hetty’s white face, her dark eyes large and staring. Something in her face must have touched even Havelock’s hard heart for he softened his tone.