A Good Liar

by Ruth Sutton

  ‘Why?’ said John, ‘How?’

  ‘Well she’d lose ’er job, for a start,’ Fred chimed in again. ‘Church won’t let ’er carry on teaching bairns if she’s ’ad a bairn ’erself, and not wed. And the ’ouse too. That goes wi’ job. What would she do then?’

  John sank back into the big chair and put his head in his hands. ‘I thought she’d be happy about it,’ he said miserably. ‘I thought she’d want to see me, to know that I’m here.’

  ‘And she will, John, course she will,’ said Hannah, gesturing to Fred to shut up. ‘But she might ’ave to keep it quiet, like. So you’ll ’ave to take care, that’s all we’re saying, right Fred?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Fred. ‘Is there anyone else you think might know about it?’

  ‘The man I spoke to in Grange, Mr Crane, was sure about the photo, and that the girl had had a baby. He was sure, but he’d kept it quiet all this time. He was glad for me.’

  ‘And we are too, lad,’ Hannah put an arm round his shoulders. ‘Could you talk to someone else first, round the houses, like? Someone who knows more about Miss Whelan than we do. That Miss Plane, she’s her friend, ask her about it. Tell ’er what you found out, see what she thinks. But don’t just blurt it all out, John. Be careful. Folk can be very cruel.’

  John thought back to how upset Agnes had been when he left. Did she know something, too? He stood up and moved towards the window.

  ‘Look at me, Hannah. And you, Fred. Do I look like Miss Whelan, at all? Here in the light. Look at my face.’

  They both stared at him.

  ‘Nay, I can’t be sure,’ said Hannah after a moment. ‘I could say you ’ad the same dark hair, the same shape around the chin even, but what if you do? You might even be related to ’er, at a distance like, a cousin or summat. Doesn’t make her your mam.’

  ‘That’s reet,’ said Fred. ‘Mebbe you’re family, but not ’er son. We don’t know enough, lad, not to be sure.’

  John stood by the window, where the gleam from the snow illuminated the pain and indecision in his face.

  ‘Tell you what, pet,’ said Hannah. ‘Ere’s what I would do. I’d go and see Miss Plane, on yer own. Tell ’er what you’ve told us. Ask ’er what to do, what she thinks. She’ll know stuff we don’t, you see. And she’ll ’ave an idea what to do.’

  ‘But not today,’ said Fred. ‘Christmas Day’s no time to turn up at someone’s door with questions like that. You’ve waited a long time, lad, and it’ll keep a bit longer. Boxing Day tomorrow, you can get a ride down early to t’Farriers with folk going to see the hunt off. But today we stay ’ere, eat Hannah’s pie, have a beer, do nowt. That’s my plan.’

  ‘And it’s a good ’un, Fred,’ said Hannah, loving her husband even more than usual for his good sense.

  ‘I’ve waited so long,’ said John.

  ‘So you can wait a while longer,’ said Hannah.

  Chapter 32

  Jessie was asleep when Agnes ushered Dr Dawson into the room, and it took a few moments to remember where she was and what had happened. Her head hurt, and she winced as she moved her foot. As Dr Dawson waited patiently she pulled the borrowed shawl around her shoulders and smiled.

  ‘So sorry to call you out at such an inconvenient time, doctor,’ said Jessie. ‘Just a silly accident last night and I’m making such a nuisance of myself.’

  ‘Think nothing of it, Miss Whelan. My wife and I were out and about this morning, church you know, and Joan is having a good old chat with Agnes, while I see to you. So it’s no bother at all. Happy Christmas to you, by the way.’

  ‘And to you,’ said Jessie, thankful for the tone of normality after the tension of the past few days.

  Dr Dawson pronounced the ankle to be sprained but not broken, bandaged it up as tightly as Jessie could bear, checked her pulse and her eyes for any signs of concussion after her fall against the wall.

  ‘That ankle may take a while to heal,’ he said, picking up his bag, ‘ but you’ve survived the hour or two in the frost very well, all in all. A few days’ rest and you’ll be hobbling about feeling much better. You’ll be staying here I take it? Need a bit of nursing, regular meals, that sort of thing. Can’t think of anywhere better for a spot of convalescence. You were staying with Agnes anyway I understand.’

  ‘For a few days, yes,’ said Jessie. ‘We alternate at Christmas, and this year it was my turn to come here.’

  ‘Perfect,’ said the doctor, ‘so I’ll leave you to enjoy the rest of the day. No more walking in the snow for a while!’ And he was gone. Jessie heard the voices downstairs and the sound of the front door closing.

  She lay back, wincing before she found a comfortable position. The pain in her mind was not so easy to placate. Gradually, shreds of the conversation with Andrew were returning to her. He had said that he tried to save Alice, and she wanted so much to believe him. And that night, when he had hurt her, did he really not remember? He’d been drunk, she knew that, but was that a reason, or an excuse? For a while, listening to his voice and watching his face in the glow of the fire she had wanted to forget what had happened, as he had done, and hold him again like before. She knew she should not, that it was weak and foolish, but he said he loved her and she had been so lonely for so long. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. He had gone, and her life was as empty as before. She was still at the heart of no one’s life, except her own.

  She heard the door being gently pushed open and kept as still as she could, hoping that Agnes would go away. Agnes, on the other hand, was desperate to speak and could not wait.

  ‘Dr Dawson says you’ll be fine in a few days, apart from the ankle,’ she said, stepping further into the room. She coughed slightly before speaking again.

  ‘Someone else was here too, last night. Do you remember anything? Do you know who found you out in the snow?’ Agnes sounded excited but Jessie wasn’t sure why. She turned her head.

  ‘You found me, didn’t you?’ she said. ‘You went looking for me when I didn’t arrive?’

  ‘Well, yes I did, dear, but I had someone else with me.’ Agnes waited for a question, but Jessie waited too.

  ‘John was here, John Pharaoh. I picked him up at Mill Cottage and he spotted you as we drove back from the Kitchin’s.’

  Jessie’s heart flipped.

  ‘Why did you go there, what did Nellie say?’

  ‘Nothing that made much sense, according to John. He spoke to her, gathered you’d set off from there and we followed the road back here until he spotted you by the wall. Thank heaven he did, dear, or else – ’

  ‘But what did Nellie tell him?’ Jessie interrupted, dreading what might have been said.

  ‘Nothing, dear, really. Why, what was going on? What were you doing there?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Jessie replied, leaning back onto the pillow in the hope that Agnes would leave her alone. She wondered about John.

  ‘Did John say anything?’

  ‘About you, you mean? No he didn’t. Seemed very keen to get away actually, back to Mill Cottage. He’s such a nice boy, very fond of the Porters and concerned for them. If he is your son, Jessie, he’s a credit to you.’

  Agnes knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words were out. Jessie turned towards her suddenly.

  ‘How can he be a credit to me?’ she said. ‘I gave him away, remember, when he was four days old, to people I didn’t know. He’s their son, they raised him, he’s a credit to them, not to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, dear, I didn’t mean – ’

  ‘And anyway,’ Jessie went on, the anxiety of the past days leaking into the words as she spat them out, ‘there’s nothing magical in motherhood, Agnes. It’s not a spiritual connection, just biology. He doesn’t know me any more than I know him. And if he is my son, what happens then?’

  Agnes sat on the little chair by the door, wilting under her friend’s anger.

  ‘I don’t know, dear.’

  ‘No you don’t, Agnes. You’ve never ha
d a child and you can’t possibly understand,’

  Agnes sobbed suddenly, but Jessie could not stop herself, the bitter words pouring out of her again.

  ‘This is my life. Twenty years ago I made a mistake, and now I’ll have to pay the price, after all I’ve done, the job, my house, my life here, all gone, and all you want is “Happy ever after”. This is my life Agnes, for pity’s sake, so just let me decide.’

  She looked hard at the weeping woman. ‘Oh please Agnes, you didn’t, did you? You didn’t say anything to him, about me?’

  ‘No, no!’ cried Agnes, knowing how close she had come to doing so. ‘He just woke up and had some breakfast and then he said he had to go. I couldn’t stop him. I didn’t say anything to him, truly.’

  ‘So what does he know? What did he find out in all that snooping around? I can’t bear just waiting for the knock on the door. Maybe I should just ask him straight out. Maybe I should just leave.’ She ran out of breath and lay, staring at the ceiling, furious at herself and what lay ahead of her.

  Agnes blew her nose. ‘If you lose the job, and the house, you could always stay here with me,’ she whispered. ‘And John, too. It’s not too late, Jessie. You could start again, the two of you, as a family.’

  Jessie groaned. ‘For God’s sake, Agnes, don’t say any more. Let me think. I have to think. Did John say anything about coming back?’

  ‘No,’ Agnes sniffed. ‘But it’s Christmas Day. Nothing will happen today.’ She got up slowly. ‘I’ll leave you now. You need to rest.’

  As Agnes escaped from the room, Jessie turned her head to the wall, hating herself.

  It was well into the afternoon and already twilight when Jessie slowly came down the stairs, using Agnes’s father’s walking stick to support her injured ankle. Her head ached and she felt wretched. She had been viciously unkind to Agnes, in her own home, on Christmas Day, and she was ashamed. Agnes heard her on the stairs and hurried out into the hall, smiling a little too brightly.

  ’Oh you’re awake, that’s good,’ she said. ‘Just in time for a proper meal. You haven’t eaten much all day and I delayed the roast as long as I could.’

  ‘Yes, I can smell it,’ said Jessie, smiling. ‘That’s probably what woke me up.’

  Agnes had laid the table in the dining room with her best china and glasses, and the cutlery she had inherited from her mother and used only on special occasions. The obvious care she had taken made Jessie feel even worse. They talked for a while of inconsequential things, of school and the village, but Jessie’s heart was too full to be distracted for long. She pushed her half-empty plate to one side and placed her hands side by side on the table, composing herself.

  ‘I must apologise for the way I spoke to you earlier, Agnes,’ she said carefully, looking up only as she reached the end of the sentence. ‘It’s been a difficult time, but that’s no excuse really for such rudeness. It must have upset you, today of all days, and I’m sorry.’

  Agnes reached across the table and laid her hand on Jessie’s. Her eyes were bright.

  ‘I was upset,’ she said, ‘but I understand, I do. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling if you believe that this boy is your son, yours and Clive’s.’

  Jessie put her other hand over her eyes.

  ‘I still can’t be sure. I need to talk to him but I don’t have the courage to face him. Not yet.’

  ‘Do you think he knows?’ said Agnes, taking her hand away to find a handkerchief and wipe her eyes. ‘He’s been trying to find out, we know that. Going to Ulverston, and Barrow too, from what Hannah was saying.’

  Jessie looked up sharply. ‘You didn’t tell me that. He’s been to Barrow?’

  ‘That’s what they said.’

  Jessie wondered whom he could have seen there. Both Cora and Barbara were gone and she couldn’t imagine that they had confided in anyone else. Agnes got up to clear the plates, and Jessie sat alone in the warm room for a few minutes, thinking in circles, working out how to protect herself. It was left to Agnes to ask the question Jessie had not asked herself.

  ‘How do you think John’s feeling about this? He may have found things out gradually, but the thought that you are his mother, his real mother, how will he cope with that?’

  The question hit Jessie hard. ‘He will know that I gave him away. He could hate me for that.’

  ‘Oh no!’ cried Agnes, ‘That’s too harsh. It was long ago and things were different then. And you and Clive were going to marry. You told me that. If he hadn’t been killed so tragically, you would have been together, as a family.’

  ‘John could still hate me, even if he knows all that. Wouldn’t you? I would. Maybe he reacts angrily to things, like I do, rather than being sad about them.’

  More food was offered and refused, but still Jessie sat at the table, trying to fill the blank space in her life that loomed ahead of her, beyond the warm cocoon of Applegarth and Christmas Day. No more was said: the subject was closed for a while at least. Jessie sat by the dying fire until the throbbing of her ankle drove her upstairs again, to lie restlessly. One young man had gone, and she believed she would never see him again. The other, younger still, hovered beyond her control, weighing her future in his hands. Finally, as sleep was within reach, she thought about Clive. If John were their son, what would Clive have wanted?

  Chapter 33

  Boxing Day morning. The yard of the Farriers in Newton was crowded. Men in nailed boots and rough woollen jackets, caps pulled low on their heads, stood in small groups, their breath wreathed around them in the crisp air. A watery sun had only just begun to lighten the sky. Boys, muffled by their mothers against the cold, kicked a stone between them, pushing each other around. Inside the pub, women and girls sat, waiting. John Pharaoh sipped a mug of tea that Elsie Eilbeck had offered him, and listened to the voices around him.

  One voice, confident and piercing, cut through the babble.

  ‘Haven’t seen him at all,’ Lionel Leadbetter was saying to Elsie as they stood in the doorway watching the scene outside. ‘He should have come to dinner last night, but no sign, no word. Caroline’s a bit bothered.’

  ‘Not been in ’ere either,’ replied the landlady. ‘Expected him Christmas Eve, when all the rest from the quarry were ’ere, but he never showed. He’ll be reet, turn up at last minute you see.’

  ‘Leaving it late, but nothing unusual there, I suppose.’

  ‘Right enough, vicar. Can I get you anything?’

  ‘Not just yet, Elsie, thank you. Have to do my bit shortly, before they all set off.’

  Lionel buttoned up his coat and strode out into the yard. The first of the dogs were streaming down the lane towards the pub, thirty or so hounds, white, brown, grey, alert, tails held high. Stan Crudders, wearing the green jacket inherited from his father and still too big for his narrow frame, whistled them in. It would be a good day. The morning mist was clearing and a rust-brown animal would show up well against the white of the fells. One of the outlying farms towards Bootle had reported a fox gone to ground on the lower slopes of Black Combe. They were ready.

  The crowd stood silent for a moment while Lionel asked for divine help with their efforts. No one had ever asked him to do it, but no one had the courage to stop him either. As he finished, Stan put the horn to his lips and blew, once, again. The dogs yelped and jumped, the smell of the doomed fox in their nostrils, carried by the wind from the south. Men and dogs streamed down the road as children waved and women picked up their baskets to head home. John finished his tea and set off towards Applegarth, his heart thumping in his chest.

  Just before he reached the top of the drive, he heard the hoot of a car horn behind him. It was the big Armstrong Siddeley with the vicar at the wheel and his wife beside him. Everyone knew the vicar’s car. John followed the car down the drive. Lionel Leadbetter eased his large frame out of the driver’s seat.

  ‘Good day to you, young man,’ said Lionel. ‘Coming to visit Miss Plane?’

  ‘Well, I –�
� John began, but the vicar didn’t wait for a response.

  ‘Got something to ask her, don’t you know,’ Lionel continued, as if John hadn’t spoken. ‘Won’t take a tick, if you could hang on.’

  He banged sharply on the outer door. Caroline Leadbetter held out her hand to John. ‘It’s John isn’t it? You live up at Mill Cottage? Happy Christmas to you, a little late, but never mind.’

  ‘John Pharaoh,’ said John, shaking the gloved hand as politely as he could. ‘And Happy Christmas to you, too.’

  The porch door opened, and Agnes stood there, a dressing gown pulled tightly around her. ‘Good heavens,’ she said. ‘Quite a crowd. Good morning to you all. As you can see, I wasn’t expecting visitors just yet.’

  ‘Ah, Agnes,’ said Lionel. ‘Sorry to call so early …’

  ‘Come in all of you,’ said Agnes, stepping back to open the inner door. ‘Too cold to stand out there with the door open. Come away in, there’s a fire on already and it’s a bit warmer than out there. Now what can I do for you all?’

  John looked around the room. No sign of Jessie. Had she gone? He would have to wait until the Leadbetters had done whatever they came to do. Caroline Leadbetter held her husband’s arm. ‘Nothing to worry about, Agnes,’ she said. ‘We were down at the Farriers, for the hunt, and thought we’d take the chance to ask if you’d seen Andrew at all?’

  ‘Andrew? Where is he?’

  ‘Well, that’s just it, dear, we’re not sure. He was due to come for dinner last night, but didn’t appear. Now the hunt’s away and still no sign of him or his dogs. Not like him to miss the hunt …’

  ‘Or his mother’s Christmas dinner,’ Lionel interrupted. ‘Have you heard anything?’

  ‘Me? No, nothing,’ said Agnes. ‘What about you, John?’

  John wasn’t sure what to say. He shrugged, ‘I haven’t seen Andy … for ages. Been off work –’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Lionel interrupted. ‘So none of you have seen him then. Told you so, Caroline. He’ll have gone off somewhere, grumbling about something no doubt, or just to avoid spending time with me. Sometimes I wonder …’