Mary's Child

by Irene Carr

  Also by Irene Carr

  Chrissie's Children

  Lovers Meeting

  Katy's Men

  Emily

  Fancy Woman

  Liza

  Rachel

  Jailbird's Daughter

  Mary’s Child

  Irene Carr

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 1996 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © 1996 by Irene Carr

  The right of Irene Carr to be identified as the Author of the Work

  has been asserted by her in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any

  means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be

  otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that

  in which it is published and without a similar condition being

  imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance

  to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Ebook ISBN 978 1 444 76524 3

  Paperback ISBN 978 0 340 65433 0

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 1

  13th January, 1894. Monkwearmouth in Sunderland.

  Mary brought the child home. She wrapped the mewling scrap of life in her knitted shawl and left Agatha, the narrow-faced midwife, tending the whining mother lying exhausted in the bed. Mary went out into the night, passed through the pitchy darkness of the yard that was close under the shadow-casting loom of the houses and so came into the back lane where there was a little light. The wind had swept the sky clear of the near-perpetual coal smoke from the hundreds of chimneys ranked along the roofs but she could still smell it and the salt from the sea. Now a few stars blinked through cloud.

  She hurried, breathing fast but with excitement not effort; she was still young. She clutched the bundle close to her breast and almost ran because of the winter’s cold and her fear that it would grip the child in her arms. But she went carefully, eyes cast down to be sure of her footing because she must not fall. There had been a dusting of snow on the cobbles when she came this way an hour before; the message had come to her then that the birth was imminent. Now that concealing whiteness had become dirty slush, slippery under her feet as her button boots splashed through it.

  She came to her own back gate, shouldered through it without letting go of the child – Harry could bolt it later – and plunged once more into the black hole of her own yard. The rear wall of the house lifted in front of her and she pushed through the back door into the passage. Her boots had made little sound in the slush of the yard but each footfall on the bare boards of the passage came like a muffled drumbeat. She thought that the Wards upstairs might hear her but it did not matter. Harry Carter had heard his wife coming and as she reached the first door opening out of the passage he pulled it wide. She stepped past him into the gaslit room beyond and at last drew a full breath. She was home.

  She crossed the kitchen with the table at its centre and sat down on the cracket, the little four-legged stool, in front of the coal fire. She rested her booted feet on the brass fender and laid the child down carefully on her knee. The boots dripped into the fireside and started to steam.

  Harry Carter, short, broad and just a year older than his young wife, came to stand over her. He said doubtfully, ‘You’ve got it?’

  Mary turned her face up to him, laughing with excitement and joy. ‘Aye, I have! And not “it” – her, a little lass!’ She cautiously, carefully eased back a corner of the shawl to peep in at the child, felt at her small face and body with a finger and said softly, ‘She’s warm as toast and sound asleep.’ She stood up, almost eye to eye with Harry but slim and thin faced, brown hair drawn back in a bun. ‘Do you want to hold her a minute?’

  ‘Aye.’ He held out his arms and took the child, awkward with nervousness but eager for the moment. He and Mary stood with heads bent close together. He was first to return to harsh reality: ‘Are you sure we’re doin’ the right thing?’

  ‘I am!’ Mary was definite. ‘A new year, a new bairn, a new life! It’s a dream come true!’

  ‘Mebbe. But they’re short of orders at Ballantyne’s and there’s not another ship to work on when this one’s finished. They’re laying men off. What if I get the sack?’

  ‘You haven’t got the sack, and if you did it would probably only be for a week or two till you got a job in one o’ the other yards. And I’ve got my job at the ropes.’

  ‘But that depends on the ships. If they’re not building, they’ll not want the ropes.’

  ‘Everything around here depends on the ships. But there’ll always be ships, they’ll always want ships and yards to build them, so stop worrying.’ Mary stood on tiptoe and kissed him and he grinned at her, then looked down at the sleeping child.

  He asked, ‘What are we going to call her?’

  Mary’s smile slipped away for a moment, then returned. ‘She’s already named. Her mother wants her called Chrissie.’

  ‘Chrissie?’ Harry thought about it then tried it again, ‘Chrissie Carter.’ He grinned. ‘Aye, that sounds all right.’ Then, serious again, ‘And you’re sure she’s ours?’

  ‘That she is, and no going back. Martha Tate is a single lass and the father’s let her down. She doesn’t want the bairn, she’s made that clear.’

  Harry was dubious. ‘She’s a theatrical, been on the stage in London and all over. From what I’ve heard she’s no angel.’

  Mary admitted, ‘I daresay she’s no better than she should be. But she’s been taken advantage of and left in the lurch.’

  ‘Who is the father?’

  Mary shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Only that he’s from a family that owns one o’ the yards on the river, a rich man’s son. More than that, Martha won’t say.’ Now she reached up for the child. ‘But it’s time she was in bed. Come on.’

  They went through into the other room, the bedroom, that faced on to the street. There was a grate in there but no fire in it and their breath stood on the air in front of them as Mary whispered, ‘Did you put the shelf in?’

  ‘Aye.’ Harry reached over the side of the cradle, pulled back the blankets and took out the square foot of black steel plate that was the oven shelf. Mary laid the child in its place, on the square of sheet that the plate had warmed, and tucked the covers in around her. Harry carried the plate back into the kitchen and slid it into the oven alongside the fire that heated it. Then he shut the back gate and back door, moving quietly on his toes on the boards of the passage. He turned off the gaslight and groped his way into the bedroom by the light from
the kitchen fire. He paused and stooped low over the cradle for a minute, his face close to that of the sleeping child so he could just see her in the gloom. Then he undressed and climbed into bed and into Mary’s arms.

  She whispered, ‘I’m that happy! I’ve always wanted a bairn and the doctor said I couldn’t have one, but now I have.’ She corrected, ‘We have.’ But then she asked anxiously, ‘Did you have your heart set on a boy?’

  Harry breathed, ‘No. She’s a bonny lass.’ And later, after thinking about it, marvelling at their good fortune and worrying about this new responsibility, he wondered: ‘How could anybody give a bairn away?’

  Martha Tate was recovering now in a similar bedroom, but this one had a fire in the grate because of the birth. There was a smell of unwashed dishes and past meals from the kitchen next door. Martha sat up in the bed and demanded, ‘Give me a drink, Aggie, and not bloody tea.’ She could be a beauty, but now was bedraggled, her face twisted sourly.

  The midwife took glasses from a cupboard and lifted a bottle, squinted at it. ‘There’s a drop o’ rum left.’

  ‘That’ll do. Anything.’

  ‘Think I’ll have a drop myself. It’s been a hard night.’

  Martha complained, ‘A bloody sight harder for me.’ She held out a long-fingered hand. ‘Give us that!’

  Aggie poured generously and passed one glass to Martha. ‘All the best.’ She was a woman of thirty, sharp eyed and narrow faced, falsely smiling with thin lips.

  Martha seized the glass. ‘Same to you.’

  They sipped at the neat spirit and Martha licked her lips. ‘That’s better. Thank God that’s over. Another few days and I’ll be off. I’ve been stuck in this bloody house for months.’ At that time a woman hid her pregnancy from the world.

  Aggie sniffed, reproving, ‘You were glad enough of the place when you came.’

  Martha was quick to acknowledge it: ‘Ah! That I was. I couldn’t go back to my own folks in Newcastle. When they weren’t preaching at me they’d be taking every penny I’d got. And they threw me out years ago because I’d gone on the stage.’ She drank, then amended, ‘Well, they were going to but I did a flit before they could kick me out o’ the door. So I wouldn’t go back to that hole and I’m grateful to you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Aggie added slyly, ‘And you’ll be settling up with me when you go.’

  ‘’Course I will.’ Martha’s upper lip curled. ‘The feller that got me like this, his father’s got plenty o’ money. If he can find it to build ships then he can find it for me. The bugger will pay through the nose.’

  They both drank to that, laughing.

  Ezra Arkenstall came two days later.

  All the houses were the same. They stood in long lines on either side of the cobbled street, twenty or more in a block. There were two rooms and the passage on the ground floor, and upstairs two more rooms and, over the passage, a cubicle just big enough for a narrow bed. There was row after row of them, lying close to the River Wear because they were built to house the men who worked in the shipyards.

  Arkenstall came in the evening, walking down the hill towards St Peter’s church but turning off into one of the streets. Darkness had fallen some hours ago but he could see at the end of the street the glint of the sea under the moon. A ship was coming in between the enclosing arms of the two piers, steaming up the river towards the docks. The wind coming off the sea drove up between the rows of houses and snatched at the tails of his dark woollen overcoat. There were few people about but those who saw him stared curiously because they did not see many of his kind down there.

  He was in his forties, with a pointed beard and wire-rimmed spectacles, vigorous but with the slight stoop come from long hours at a desk. The overcoat covered a well-cut suit and his boots were expensive and highly polished. He had money. He was a solicitor, senior partner in the firm of Arkenstall, Eddrington & Halliwell, though Wilfred Eddrington had died of consumption three years before.

  He stopped at a front door, closed against the wind but not yet bolted for the night. He opened it without knocking because that was unnecessary in these streets. He closed the door behind him, took off his bowler hat and walked along the uncarpeted passage to the kitchen door at the rear. This time he knocked and waited.

  The midwife opened the door to him and his nostrils twitched at the stale smell of cooking but he asked, ‘May I see Miss Tate, please?’

  Aggie led him through the kitchen, its table laden with dirty dishes, into the bedroom. A small table stood beside the bed, holding a pack of cards, a hand of them face down, a scattering of small change, two empty bottles of stout and two half-full glasses. Martha Tate laid her own hand of cards face down on the coverlet when she saw Arkenstall and said, ‘Oh, it’s you again. I’ve been expecting you but not this quick. How did you know?’

  He answered, ‘That is my business.’ He turned to the midwife and asked, ‘Will you excuse us, please?’ He watched Aggie’s back as she flounced out of the room, and saw that the door was closed behind her. Then he swung back to face Martha Tate.

  Twenty years separated them but the gap seemed narrower. The woman was darkly attractive with a wide mouth, full breasts and long legs that showed through the sheets, but there was a hardness about the fine-boned face that added years. Arkenstall thought, The face of a fallen angel, then chided himself for being melodramatic.

  He looked around the room and said, ‘Where is the child? Have you found it a home?’

  Martha answered, ‘I have. I didn’t want her, couldn’t drag her round the halls, could I? She’s gone to a couple up the street: Carter, downstairs at number eight.’

  ‘A girl, then.’

  ‘That’s right. Now let’s get on with it.’ Her tone was brusque.

  The solicitor’s lips tightened in anger but he said, ‘When I called on you a month ago it was because you had obtained an interview with my client at which you stated that you had met his son when you were appearing at the Empire Theatre here—’

  Martha broke in, ‘That’s right. I’m billed as Vesta Nightingale, vocals and dance. But we’ve been through all this before.’

  Arkenstall nodded. ‘But I want to ensure there is no mistake nor misunderstanding. To go on: you further alleged that the young man was the father of the child you were carrying.’

  ‘So he was.’

  The solicitor said, ‘He has been dead for six months now and cannot deny the charge or admit it. His father does not believe it to be true.’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t. But I’m telling you the truth.’ Martha Tate was defiant. She looked him straight in the eye but he was not impressed. In the courts he had seen that same direct gaze from guilty men trying to brazen it out.

  He said, ‘Nevertheless, you cannot prove his paternity and my client refuses to accept liability on his behalf.’ He held up a hand as Martha opened her mouth. ‘Wait, please. Let me finish. A month ago I said my client, though denying any liability, might as an act of charity be prepared to make a once-and-for-all payment to cover the expenses of the confinement. I can now say that he is prepared to do this, provided you sign a disclaimer to the effect that his son was not the father of your child.’

  Martha sneered, ‘He’s trying to buy me off!’

  Arkenstall kept a hold on his temper. ‘The father is still mourning and does not want the boy’s name sullied.’ The young man had been killed in an accident in the shipyard, slipped and fallen from the deck of a ship under construction. Arkenstall wondered briefly how he would have felt in the father’s place. He himself had married late in life and his own son was barely two years old. The mere thought of losing him was horrifying. His fingers fumbled as he took the paper from his pocket. ‘I have the disclaimer here.’ He handed it to Martha and she took it but did not read it.

  She demanded, ‘How much?’ Then added quickly, muttering, eyes sliding to the door, ‘Keep your voice down.’

  Arkenstall said softly, ‘One hundred pounds.’

&nbs
p; Martha licked her lips. That was more than some men earned in two years in the yards. She asked, ‘What if I don’t sign?’

  Arkenstall said flatly, ‘You get nothing.’

  She glared at him, ‘Suppose I took him to court or told the papers? There’s one or two reporters would love a story like that from Vesta Nightingale.’

  Arkenstall would not be moved. ‘They might. But would they pay you a hundred pounds?’

  Martha tried a different tack, smiled and wheedled, ‘Make it two hundred.’

  But Arkenstall shook his head and said with distaste, ‘My client made it clear he would not bargain. That is his final offer.’

  Martha sighed, put a hand to her brow in a theatrical gesture of weariness and gave in. ‘What can a poor girl in my position do? I’ve got to get to London to work. I’ll sign it.’

  Arkenstall had one of the newfangled fountain pens in an inside pocket but he did not offer it. Martha Tate leaned out of the bed to reach a chest of drawers and took from one of the drawers a pen and a bottle of ink. Arkenstall glimpsed a packet of cheap stationery in the drawer. The letter to his client had been written on similar paper – and probably on the table in the kitchen next door.

  He held up a hand, ‘One moment.’ He took the disclaimer from her and folded it so only the foot of the sheet showed, with the spaces for signatures. He opened the door and saw the midwife rising from her chair – or, he wondered, sinking hastily into it? But he called her, ‘Will you come in, please?’

  Martha scratched her signature at the foot of the sheet and Aggie added hers as a witness.

  Arkenstall said, ‘Thank you.’ He waited and Aggie took the hint and left the room again. When the door was closed he took an envelope from his pocket and tossed it on to the bed. ‘There are fifty pound notes in there. I will give you the balance at the station.’

  Martha snatched up the envelope and counted the money, licking her finger to flick over the notes. Then she tucked the envelope away under her pillow and Arkenstall said, ‘When you register the birth – the certificate asks for the name of the father.’