by Ruth Sutton
‘You hurt me, Andrew. You may have forgotten, but I can’t. It’s finished now.’
He bent towards her.
‘Don’t,’ she said, stepping back. ‘Don’t touch me. Just go.’ She turned away and went back into the room where Nellie was still sitting by the fire. A minute later they heard the engine of Andrew’s motorbike fire and roar, then settle into a steady thud as he guided it carefully out to the road and away.
Chapter 31
It was just before midnight. A gloved hand was beating on the door of Mill Cottage. John heard it first, and the muffled voice. When he opened the door, Agnes Plane was standing there.
‘Oh thank God you’re here,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know what else to do. It’s Jessie. She was due at my house this evening, to stay for Christmas, but she didn’t arrive. It had started to snow, and I wondered if that was the problem, so I went down to the schoolhouse and she wasn’t there either.’
She pushed past him into the cottage as Hannah appeared at the bottom of the stairs, pulling a long shawl around her shoulders.
John closed the door against the wind.
‘Miss Whelan ain’t here,’ said Hannah. ‘I ’eard what you said. We ain’t seen her, ’ave we John, not today. Did you think she might be ’ere?’
‘Well,’ said Agnes. ‘I didn’t know where else to look. I thought she might have walked up here like she does sometimes, to wish you a happy Christmas or something.’ It sounded weak and she knew it, but it didn’t matter. Jessie wasn’t here.
‘Have you driven up, in this weather?’ said John.
‘The car’s by the road. It wasn’t too bad, until I got to the end of the lane.’
‘And you didn’t see Miss Whelan?’
‘Not a sign, but it was hard to see anything, you know. If she’d seen the car she would have waved, surely, unless …’
‘Unless she was hurt or something you mean,’ said John.
‘She could have slipped, fallen. It’s bitter out there. She could have set off somewhere before the snow started and then … well, she could be anywhere. We have to find her.’
‘We will,’ said John. ‘You stay here, Hannah. Miss Plane and I will take the car as far as we can. Is there anywhere else she could have gone? Did she say anything to you?’
‘I know she and Nellie Kitchin went up to the Hall yesterday,’ said Agnes. ‘It was something to do with poor Alice, I think.’
John peered out of the window at the snow as the wind moaned in the fireplace. ‘Could we get to Kitchin’s place, to ask Nellie?’ he said, turning back into the room. ‘We need a place to start looking or she could be anywhere.’
‘If you go now afore it gets any thicker out there,’ said Hannah. ‘I’ll stay ’ere with Fred. We wouldn’t be much use, any road. You two take the car while you can. Won’t get down t’lane to Kitchin’s if snow’s lying, but our John can get down there. Are you wrapped enough? Tek this shawl, plenty more o’ them upstairs. You get everything on that’ll fit under yer coat, our John.’
Hannah turned to the dresser and took down one of the big square tins. ‘Tek this too, and a knife. Gingerbread. That’ll keep you going, and ’er too if you find ’er.’
John clutched the tin of gingerbread as he and Agnes slipped and slithered over the little bridge and down to where the car stood gathering snow at the end of the lane by Hill House. They inched back down the valley. Snow swirling in the car’s lights made it impossible to see more than few feet in front of them, and Agnes asked John to wipe the inside of the windscreen to stop it misting up. It took far longer than normal to drive the mile or so to the end of Kitchin’s farm lane. John got out and set off alone towards the house. He banged on the door as he stood on the threshold, calling Bill Kitchin’s name and his own to avoid being attacked as a stranger. Everyone, even off-comers like John, knew Bill’s reputation for violence.
Nellie appeared first. She opened the door just an inch or two, squinting through the crack at the young man standing on her step in the middle of a cold black night.
‘What?’ she said. ‘Who are you? No, I know. You’re that lad they pulled out of the – ’
‘Yes, that’s me, Mrs Kitchin. I live up at the mill with Hannah and Fred. I’m John, John Pharaoh.’
‘Whitehaven Pharaohs?’ said Nellie, still peering round the door.
‘No,’ John said, rubbing his cold hands together. Before he could think how to explain himself, she opened the door and pulled him inside, putting a finger to lips as she did so.
‘ ’E’s asleep,’ she said, gesturing into the house. ‘Dinnut wake ’im.’
John blew on his numb fingers, looking in vain for the warmth of the fire that was merely a glow in the range.
‘I’m with Miss Plane. She’s got her car, at the end of the lane.’
‘Aye,’ said Nellie, still glancing behind her and gesturing for John to keep his voice down.
‘We’re looking for Miss Whelan,’ he whispered. ‘Miss Plane said that you and Miss Whelan went to the Hall. Can you think where Jessie, where Miss Whelan might have gone?’
Nellie put her hands to her mouth, and then held onto John’s arm.
‘She went to see ’im, to tell ’im what that girl said.’
‘What girl?’ John was straining to follow what Nellie was saying.
‘Phyllis, that no-good Phyllis,’ said Nellie. ‘I knew she was lying, at th’ inquest, and she was. She told us.’
‘Nellie,’ said John, speaking into the woman’s face. ‘Slow down. What did Phyllis tell you? Is it about Miss Whelan? Do you know where she might be?’
‘Phyllis told us about ’im, that Leadbetter.’
‘The vicar?’ said John.
‘No, the young ’un, Andy. And Miss Whelan went up there. We were all there, and then she walked back wi’ me.’
‘When was this, Nellie?’ said John. ‘And where were you?’
‘At quarry,’ Nellie answered simply, as if it was perfectly obvious. ‘ ’ E lives there. ’E went away and we came back ’ere.’
‘So is she here?’
‘Nay, lad. She saw me back and then she went. It were late and the snow were bad. I wanted ’er to stay but she wouldn’t. Mebbe ’e followed us. Oh, God. Where is she?’
‘When did she leave here?’
‘Just after we got back. She could see Bill were still asleep, so she left. Said she was walking ’ome, like. Back to Newton. It were bad out, but she wouldn’t stay. Said she ’ad good shoes and a shawl and she went.’
‘But she didn’t get back,’ said John almost to himself.
‘Is that it?’ said Nellie. ‘What about ’im?’
‘Don’t worry about him,’ said John. He had no idea which ‘him’ Nellie was talking about, but by now he didn’t care, turning to leave the cottage while Nellie stood in the doorway watching, her hand still to her mouth.
He found some branches to put under the wheels of Agnes’s car to give it some traction before it would start, and they carried on down the road towards Newton. The snow had eased a little, but the wind that had blown it away was bitter, making the air even colder than before. As the sky cleared, tiny points of light appeared. When John got out to push, as the little car slid almost into the unforgiving wall, he saw above his head the wide band of the Milky Way.
They were nearly back to Newton when John caught sight of what looked like a bundle of rags lying by the wall. ‘Stop!’ he cried, and the back of the car slewed sideways as Agnes stepped hard on the brake. He was out in an instant, bending over the heap, finding the shoes and the feet, one at an unnatural angle. As he touched them, the heap began to move.
* * *
John awoke the next morning on the big couch in Agnes’s living room. The remnants of last night’s warmth had faded and the room was cold. He pulled the knitted blanket up towards his face. Through a gap in the curtains a thin shaft of light seeped into the room. For a moment he forgot where he was. Then he remembered, and an instant late
r he knew that Jessie Whelan was his mother. During the night, the pieces of the puzzle had aligned themselves in his mind. He had his mother’s name – Jessie. He had the fact that she had been to college, and that wasn’t common round here, except for teachers. He had her age, roughly. And he had two images of a woman with dark hair blowing round her face: one image was in his photograph of Jessie Thompson on board the Lady Moyra crossing Morecambe Bay in 1914. The other image was in his memory, as Agnes Plane’s car passed through Newton on the day he left hospital. He’d seen a woman standing at the door of the school, dark hair blowing around her face. He was certain. The woman they’d found close to death in the snow last night was his mother.
For a while, the thought overwhelmed him. He lay still, hardly daring to move in case something bubbled up to prove that he was wrong. He made himself go back and check what he knew, to find the questions he would need to ask. He should say something to her, but what if he was wrong? If it were true, the shock might hurt her. Then another thought struck him. Maybe she already knew. She had walked to Mill Cottage that day to find him, and when he came into the house it could have been the shock of seeing him that made her faint. Would a mother, any mother, recognize so instantly someone she had last seen when he was a few days old?
A floorboard creaked a little, beyond the door. Maybe it was her, come to find him, to tell him what they both knew. He held his breath.
‘I’ve brought you a cup of tea, John,’ said Agnes, coming into the room. She put the cup and saucer down on a table next to the couch. Through the open door the smell of bacon made him suddenly ravenous. ‘She’s still asleep, and the doctor’s on his way. The roads are very bad, it may take him a while.’
‘Is she alright?’ he asked, rubbing his face and pushing a hand through his hair.
‘I think so. The ankle may be sprained, or even broken, but I’ve given her something for the pain. We warmed her up before any serious damage was done, but you never know. She might have hit her head. Can’t see any obvious wound, but best to wait for the doctor anyway, don’t you think?’
‘Of course, yes,’ said John. His mind was snapping, sharp but shifting too quickly. For so many weeks he’d been taking one step after another without thinking about where it might take him. Now the picture was confused by fear and uncertainty. She’d given him away once. Would she want to see him now, after all this time?
‘Are you alright, dear?’ Agnes voice cut through the fog. ‘You look so tired. Shall we ask the doctor to look at you, too? He’s a good friend, I’m sure that would be fine.’
‘No, no, really,’ said John. ‘I’m just, you know, tired. Didn’t sleep much really. Last night’s a bit of a blur.’
‘It would have been no trouble to make up another bed, but I needed to get her warmed up.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said John. ‘The couch was fine, I just didn’t sleep much.’
Half an hour later he pushed his chair back from the table in Agnes’s small morning room. It was after nine and the sun had not yet risen above the line of the fells to the east. The trees in the garden were still, and beyond them the sky, pale grey and featureless. A fire crackled in the hearth but the room was still cold. Bacon and eggs with toast and tea had warmed him, but it was only a moment before the confusion of the previous night hit him again. A sudden panic turned the taste of breakfast to ashes in his mouth. For a moment he thought he might be sick. He dare not stay, see her or speak to her. She wouldn’t believe him, or acknowledge him. He couldn’t bear it. He had to get out, back to Mill Cottage and Hannah, to feel safe again.
Agnes was in the kitchen.
‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘Hannah will be worried. I don’t want her risking coming down here while it’s so bad, nor Fred. It’s Christmas … they need me …’ His voice tailed away, aware of the weakness of his excuse. He just had to get out, before she woke up, or saw him there. Agnes seemed shocked. She reached out to him, holding his arm with an urgency that surprised him.
‘But we need you too, dear,’ she spluttered, talking fast and too loudly, ‘You have to help me clear the drive, for the doctor, and, and it’s too far for you to walk back to the Mill. We can send someone up with a message for Hannah. So you can stay, you don’t need to leave. You can help me look after Jessie until the doctor gets here. I was making her a drink, look, for you to take up, so you can’t leave yet.’ John was astonished to see tears in Agnes’s eyes; he could not see the deeper distress as her dreams crumbled, dreams of the love and reconciliation that she would witness and be part of, embraced and thanked by both.
He shook his head and turned away, picked up his coat from the hall stand, and put on his boots in the porch as Agnes watched, tears now running unchecked down her anxious face. Outside the air was clear and very cold. His boots squeaked on the snow as he walked carefully up the sloping drive towards the road and then back towards his home and the woman he most wanted to talk to.
When he pushed open the door of Mill Cottage the first thing that struck him was the smell of meat and onions and spices he could not name. Hannah felt the blast of air and turned towards him, smiling and wiping her hands. ‘He’s ’ere,’ she called out. ‘He’s ’ere, Fred. Our John.’
John shut the door and stood quite still as Hannah reached up to hug him. ‘We were feared for you, lad, in the snow and all. Couldn’t do ’owt but wait. Fred said you’d be at Applegarth, likely safe and sound. But did you find ’er – Miss Whelan? Is she alreet?’
Fred had come in from the yard, a pile of logs balanced on one arm, and joined them, smiling broadly. He dropped the logs into the basket and shook John’s hand.
‘We found her by the road,’ said John, replying to Hannah’s question, ‘just this side of Newton. She must’ve slipped, hurt her ankle and couldn’t get up. Don’t know how long she was there, but she was really cold and faint, mumbling, making no sense. We got her back to Miss Plane’s and now the doctor’s coming. Miss Plane thinks she’ll be alright. I had to leave. Couldn’t stay.’
‘What’s wrong, lad?’ Fred turned John’s face towards him and looked at him. ‘It’s cold, reet enough, but tha looks bad.’
‘Let’s get that coat off you,’ said Hannah, turning John back towards her, ‘and them boots. Place ’as warmed up nicely. Drop of that damson gin, Fred, that’s what ’e needs.’
The two of them fussed over him, and John let them do so, glad to avoid decisions and be passive. He felt safe, sure of their steady affection for him. Now he could relax a little, at a distance from the numbing fear that his real mother would soon find him and reject him for the second time. He kept quiet, pretending to doze a little while Hannah and Fred returned to their tasks, Hannah cooking her Christmas pie and Fred by the window with a half-completed hookie rug spread on his knee, sorting colours from a bag on the window-sill beside him. John did not see Fred’s questioning gesture to his wife and her raised shoulders in response. It was only when Hannah sat down at the table behind his chair that John sat up and turned towards her.
‘I think I know, Hannah,’ he said, ‘About my mother. I think I’ve found her. It’s Miss Whelan.’
Across the room, the rug slipped from Fred’s lap on to the floor.
John began to talk, quietly at first, facing Hannah but looking past her, towards the range where the Christmas pie sat in the oven.
‘I found some things in Ulverston,’ he said, ‘to do with my mother, my real mother. Then I went to Barrow and talked to – but that doesn’t matter. I found out some things. My real mother’s name was Jessie, Jessie Thompson. She lived in Barrow and she went to college before she had me, and her aunt knew some people who wanted a baby, so …’
‘Go on, lad,’ Hannah was struggling to keep up, but she knew he needed to talk.
‘It all fits,’ he said, desperate to convince himself. ‘Miss Whelan’s called Jessie, and she went to college, and – look. Please, look at this.’ He got up suddenly and retrieved a battered envelope from the pocket of hi
s coat hanging by the door. The photograph was reluctant to emerge.
‘See. At the end of the middle row. Look at the girl with the hair blowing over her face.’
‘Where?’
‘On the right.’
‘Where’s this?’ said Hannah, turning the photo over.
John was frantic. ‘It doesn’t matter. Just look at the girl. That’s my mother in 1914. Can’t you see? That’s her. That’s Miss Whelan.’
Hannah turned her head to look with her one good eye, then got up and went to the window, still looking and drawing the photo towards her face. John stood behind her, peering once more at the photograph ‘It’s her, isn’t it?’
Hannah turned towards him. ‘It could be her, pet. But that was a long time ago. People change.’
‘But the name,’ said John. ‘Jessie?’
Hannah looked at his desperate face. ‘It’s a common enough name. Could be just a coincidence.’
John took the photograph from her and stared at it.
‘I know it’s her. When I woke up this morning at Miss Plane’s house I just knew. Everything fits. And I think she knows it, too. That day, when she came here and she fainted when she saw me. She must have known herself. Don’t you see?’
Fred spoke from his seat at the window. ‘But she just said she’d ’ad some dizzy turns, was going to talk to t’doctor. She would have said summat, surely to God.’
‘Hold on,’ said Hannah. ‘Slow down, the pair of ye. Let’s just think a bit. Do we know where Jessie lived before she came to Newton?’
‘Down south somewhere,’ said Fred, ‘not Barrow. And why would she change ’er name like that? What’s wrong wi’ Jessie Thompson? Why Whelan? I’m not sure, lad. ’Ave you said owt to anyone else?’
‘No,’ said John, looking from Fred to Hannah and back. He wanted them to see it, to be sure as he was. Why weren’t they?
‘I know it’s her. I can feel it.’
‘John, lad. We’re not doubting you, we just want you to be sure. You’ve worked so ’ard at this. But you can’t just tell ’er summat like this without being sure. Think what it could do? Right or wrong, summat like this could finish ’er.’