by Terri Nixon
‘Why are you telling me this? Do you think I’d give Amy up to someone like that?’
She looked at me then, and her face was like that of a ghost; not just pale, but blank and lost. ‘Not deliberately, no. But what if you didn’t know?’
‘But they’re dead. You said so.’
‘Amelia is. Her daughter Polly was alive as of ’98, and still up to her old tricks.’
‘Tricks…’ The flippant phrase made me feel sick. ‘But the McKrevie girls…they’re respectable. I’ve been to their home!’ Her knowing look made me realise another lie had come to light, but it didn’t matter any more. ‘I promise you, Jessie, I would have never let her go to them if I didn’t trust them.’
‘That’s really my point, isn’t it?’ Jessie said. ‘It’s like I said, you can’t trust anyone.’
‘But if I refused to let her go, why would they give me money, instead of the other way around?’
‘That’s what worried me,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t know for sure that you had refused them, did I?’ She shrugged. ‘Perhaps you’d sold her instead of paying them to take her.’
The shock of her accusation was like a slap. It pushed aside the distress at the thought of all those unknown children, and brought my anger back with a flash. ‘How the hell dare you suggest I’d do that!’
I stood up and moved towards the door, my heart pounding, desperate to get out, and away from Jessie and her cruelty. But she leapt up too, and caught at my arm.
‘Kitty! Sit down. Please. I haven’t finished.’
‘I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.’
‘I might have been one of those children!’ she shouted, and this time it took a lot longer to find my breath again. I stared at her, and she stared back at me, and then she gestured to the bed. I sat.
‘My mother, Elizabeth Shorey, made…a mistake. A big mistake. She fell in love with the hotel owner she worked for. He got her pregnant. He was married, of course.’ She cleared her throat, and went on, her fingers twisting together in her lap, ‘He arranged for the baby…for me, to be passed to someone called Mrs Palmer. He paid, and it was even all done through a solicitor.’
‘But didn’t the solicitor know?’
‘How could he? Mrs Palmer was supposedly married to a respectable poultry farmer. All was quite above board. The solicitor drew up the agreement and they arranged to meet at his offices in Gloucester. My mother’s aunt, who’d gone with her, suggested my mother go back with Mrs Palmer for a day or two, to let the…let me, get used to my home. Mrs Palmer said no.’
‘What reason could she possibly give to refuse that? It sounds perfectly sensible.’
‘She said she and her husband were in lodgings, and it wasn’t convenient. So they went to the railway station, mother was allowed to hold me for one last time, while Mrs Palmer bought the tickets, and that should have been it.’
When I spoke it was with a kind of breathless wonder. ‘What happened, Jessie?’
‘Mother had a box all ready for me. Pinafores, nightdress, socks. A brush, I think, that kind of thing. And a hat.’ Her voice took on a sad tone. ‘Mother kept talking about that red hat, as if it meant everything. Excused everything.’ Jessie swallowed hard and continued, ‘She gave it over to Mrs Palmer, and just when she was about to let me go too—’
‘I shouted to her.’
We both jumped and turned to the door. Frances stood there, her face as white as Jessie’s. ‘I’ve been listening a while,’ she said. ‘I wanted you to be able to tell it your way.’ She came in and pulled up the little wicker chair that lived by the window. She was far too tall for it, and sat hunched over her knees, and her heels jerked in a restless tattoo against the thin carpet. ‘I knew her, you see, or thought I did. I didn’t really think she’d go through with it, and I didn’t want to bully her into a decision, so I waited for her to come to her senses by herself. But when I saw her give over the box of clothes I knew I had to stop her.’
‘Go back to the beginning,’ I urged. ‘How did you know Jessie’s mother?’
She looked at me, then at Jessie, and then back down at her tightly linked hands. ‘I left Tavistock when I was old enough to go away work, and went to Gloucester. That’s where I met Elizabeth. We got to be good friends, as good as you can be, working all day. When she told me she was in trouble by Mr Aldridge, the hotel owner, I said I’d try to help, and I did. But when the time came she went off alone, to the union workhouse, for the birth. I found her again, after.’
She glanced at Jessie again, her long, homely face filled with pain. ‘You were such a dear little thing. I took to you right away. I tried to make your mother come back down to Devon with me. But by then Mr Aldridge had made his arrangements and paid his money to Mrs Palmer. He had no idea, of course. Thought he was doing right by everyone, and so did Elizabeth. I was glad she had her aunt to help her, but I…well, I didn’t trust Mrs Palmer. And rightly, as it goes, ’cos she turned out to be Amelia Dyer’s daughter.’
‘So you stopped it all just in time!’ I was forgetting, for a moment, that these were real lives I was hearing about; it all sounded so tense and exciting it was like reading it in a book.
‘Thank goodness, yes,’ Frances said. ‘I watched, and waited until I was sure, then I stepped in. Eventually Elizabeth saw sense, and came back with me to Devon. We only meant to come home for a little while, but I met my Harry, and we wed. We put together a story of widowhood for Elizabeth, and she went back up to Gloucester with little Frances here.’
‘So that’s why Elizabeth named you after Frances,’ I said.
Frances nodded. ‘She was so grateful, especially two years later, when the full story came out. I think it was only then she realised how close she’d come to losing her little girl for ever.’ She touched Jessie’s still furiously twining fingers and spoke softly. ‘Is that why you came down here to work? Because you found out?’
She didn’t reply, but her fingers stopped twisting. Frances cupped her hand over them and raised them to her lips. ‘Sweetheart, you can’t blame your—’
‘Don’t defend her!’ Jessie shouted, ripping her hands out of Frances’s gentle grasp. ‘It was only thanks to you that I’m not dead! She wouldn’t have cared!’
‘Of course she would!’ Frances curled her own hands back into her lap in a clear effort to stop herself reaching out again. ‘She was horrified when she realised I was right about Amelia and Polly.’
Jessie went very still. ‘How did you know?’
Frances blanched. I felt a sick heat sweeping through me as I watched her face slacken into defeat. ‘Because I lost a child to them,’ she said at last, in a low, hoarse whisper.
The silence stretched. The clock ticked away the minutes, while the reality of what had passed between us settled like a thick, choking layer of ash.
Eventually Jessie spoke, and her voice was hard and cracked. ‘You sold your baby.’
‘It wasn’t like that! I wrote, and sent money, and clothes…and…and…I got letters back. Filled with news about how she was learning to walk, how she couldn’t say certain words and how charming it all was. I believed them…’ Frances caught her breath in a sob, and I felt my own throat thicken with anguish. I reached to touch her hand, and Jessie slapped my arm. Hard.
‘How can you be kind to a woman who would let someone kill her baby?’
‘She didn’t mean it to die!’ I shouted back, and at the awful, bald word, Frances broke down. Her face dropped into her hands as she wept, and I didn’t know what to do to help her. My arm was stinging from Jessie’s slap, but I couldn’t be angry with her. ‘She wanted what was right for it,’ I said, more quietly.
‘Just like you do for Amy?’
‘I haven’t sold her! I told you, I refused them.’
‘So you say.’
‘You’re going to have to trust me. What else can I say?’
‘It’s just as I said, you can’t trust anyone. Now do you believe me?’
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nbsp; I kept my voice even, but the anger was making my throat hurt. ‘If you had a single ounce of decency in you, Frances Jessie Goulding, you’d see your behaviour is unbelievably selfish. You’re lucky you have a mother who loves you, and has done all your life. And Frances saved your life, for goodness’ sake! What possible good can it do to punish someone who only wants to help? Not that you deserve it!’
There was a faint flicker in Jessie’s eyes, but she didn’t answer. She went to her drawer and started to pull out clothing. She threw it onto the bed, and Frances looked up at her in dismay.’
‘Don’t leave, Jessie! Let me tell you how it happened. You’ll understand—’
‘I understand why you feel this need to take in every waif and stray who comes to your door,’ she said, shooting a dark glance at me. ‘You feel guilty.’
‘No! I feel…’
‘What?’
Frances choked on the word, ‘Empty,’ and my own tears spilled over. I moved to hold her, and Jessie, also crying now, dragged her suitcase out from under the bed. She dashed her hand across her wet, shining eyes.
‘Kitty, be truthful: do I need to take Amy with me?’ Numb, I shook my head. ‘Good, because I don’t know where I’m going yet.’ She fixed me with a strange, half-furious, half-understanding look. ‘I’ll come back for her if I have to though. I believe you love that little girl, but—’
‘At least as much as your mother and Frances love you.’
‘No. I mean really love her. Not just feel responsible for her.’ She glanced at Frances as she said it. ‘And I believe, if you’ve done the terrible thing I think you’ve done, you’ll take it back.’
‘I haven’t!’
‘Just as you say.’ Her voice was calmer, but she sniffed. ‘Whatever it was that made Frances cling to you like her own, I hope it’s over now. Look after Amy.’
‘Stay tonight, at least,’ I said desperately. ‘Let this settle. We can talk about it properly.’
She ignored the hankie I offered; the sleeve will always be the nose-wiper of choice for the truly heartbroken. ‘No. I’ve had enough of being lied to.’
‘No-one has lied to you.’
‘Nor have they told the truth! I believed Frances saved me because she was a good person, not because she wanted to get back the child she sold to the grave.’
‘Stop it! She might not even be dead.’ I turned to Frances. ‘Jessie said not all the children died. Maybe yours was one of the lucky ones, a new name, a new home… You don’t know, Frances!’
‘Don’t be naïve, Kitty.’ Jessie looked oddly sympathetic. Then she turned away. ‘It’s your turn to replace her lost child now. Apparently I’ve been doing it for twenty-one years.’
If I’d had something heavy in my hand at that moment I might have indeed done a terrible thing, but all Frances and I could do was watch her pick up the case with the few bits she had thrown into it, and walk out of the door. There had been so many times I had wanted her to do just that, but not at the expense of Frances, who had always seemed so strong, and who now sat broken and bereft in a too-small chair, listening to the child whose life she had saved clumping down the stairs with her pathetically small suitcase.
I remembered something then, and bent to pull the heavier case out from where she had pushed it under the bed. I loosened the buckles and lifted the lid to see, not just books, as she had said, although there were some, but probably every other thing Jessie owned and had ever cared for. The weight was mostly due to several large, framed photographs, some obviously her and her mother, but many more of Frances, and a woman I didn’t recognise but I thought might be Elizabeth Shorey’s aunt.
‘She wasn’t ever going home, was she?’ Frances said in a low, hurt voice. ‘She left her mother, and never told her she wasn’t going back, and now she’s left me.’
‘Then she’s as much a liar as she’s accused you of being,’ I said shortly. Frances sighed, a heavy, tearing sound, and I crouched beside her. ‘Go to Lizzy’s house tonight, put your smile back, for those who need you, and we’ll talk tomorrow about how we can patch things up with Jessie. She’s bound to see sense, given time.’
‘I’m worried about her,’ she admitted. ‘What if she can’t find nowhere to go?’
‘It’s summer; it won’t hurt her to sleep under a hedge once or twice.’
Frances sniffed and stood up, bringing me with her. ‘You don’t blame me, do you? For what I did?’
‘How can I? I might have just done that very same thing, believing I had Amy’s interests at heart.’
Frances drew me against her in a hug. ‘I’m not trying to replace…her,’ she said, her voice low.
‘What was her name?’ I don’t know why I asked, and Frances stiffened slightly, then sagged, as if the name had been lying heavy on her heart all these years and now she could finally speak it aloud and banish its weight. ‘Alice.’
‘Tonight, when you raise a glass to Lizzy’s mother, say Alice’s name in your head too, and I’ll do the same. We’ll give her that same peace we sent our fallen.’
Frances nodded and pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes, blotting the last of her tears. ‘You’re a good girl, Kitty,’ she said, a little roughly. ‘Now go on with you. If I’m going out I’ll need to wash and tidy myself. And don’t forget those tools haven’t been cleaned yet.’
Frances, Evie, Will and Lizzy had already gone by the time the others came back in from the field. I didn’t know whether to tell them about Jessie, but Bel and Nathan probably wouldn’t spare her a thought in any case, and it might open up awkward conversations. So I made sure her bedroom door was shut, and let everyone assume she had gone to her room for the night. Amy sat at the kitchen table with her drawing paper, and I looked down to see if the random straight marks she made were starting to look as if they represented anything. Not yet, but they were less heavy. I looked closely and even saw a curved line here and there.
I smoothed my hand over her head as I passed. ‘Mister Archie will be back soon,’ I promised. ‘Maybe he’ll take you up the lane to look at the rabbits.’ The family of brownish-grey wild rabbits were as much a source of fascination for her as all the other animals she’d seen; late in the evening, just before bed, she would crouch down and stare at them as they came out to hop around the corner of the field at the top of the lane.
I’d expected her to repeat rabbits, but instead she said, ‘Mister Arsh,’ and I swallowed a lump in my suddenly tight throat as I tried to find the words to tell her he was leaving, and so was I.
I heard the three of them coming across the yard, Nathan coughing a little after his exertion, and Belinda chattering away as she peeled off her hat and let her hair fly free. Only Archie was quiet, but not through a sombre mood; he walked with the lazy, comfortable stride of a hard-working man at home in his surroundings, his movements strong and graceful as he swung his jacket from where it lay across his shoulder and hung it on the peg by the door.
When he ducked into the kitchen his gaze found me immediately, and the smile that lit his face was reflected in my own, but I nodded at Amy and he switched his attention to her.
‘Why, it’s Miss Amy-Anna-Banana!’ he said, and held out his hand. She giggled and shook it, and he ruffled her white-blonde hair before turning, again, to me. He seemed to fill the large kitchen with his presence, and as he crossed the room and took my face in his hands to kiss me, I realised that he’d been waiting for this moment as long as I had. It was a strange feeling, exciting and frightening, and it gave me a warm, liquid sensation in the pit of my stomach. I kissed him back, feeling the heat of his work-warmed skin grazing mine, and I slipped my arms around him to pull him closer.
But he held back a little, and broke the kiss with a little grimace. ‘Sweetheart, I’m all sweat and muck. Don’t dirty your apron.’
‘Might I remind you of the evening you arrived?’ I countered, sliding my hands up his back and stepping closer again. ‘I’d just finished a day’s work too.’
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br /> ‘Aye, and you stank of horse,’ he said with a grin. ‘Still, it’d been so long since I’d seen you I wouldn’t have minded if you’d been up to your shoulders in swill.’
‘Well then, you’ll know,’ I said, and stretched up and nipped lightly at his throat, tasting the cool, salt sweat on his skin. He groaned, and I smiled against his neck, which made him groan again and turn his head to take my mouth with his. Locked in his arms, feeling his damp shirt through my thin apron-top, I breathed deeply. Muck and sweat be blowed, I had never smelled anything sweeter.
When we released each other from the initial tight grasp, our arms stayed around each other and Archie twisted to look around. ‘Where’s everyone?’ he asked, belatedly realising we were alone but for Amy.
I told him about Lizzy’s mother’s birthday. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll be back much before midnight,’ I said, with slow insinuation in every word. The well-bred young lady I had once been couldn’t believe I was speaking like this, but with my hand resting on Archie’s hip, and his cupping my side, his long fingers playing silent, absent-minded tunes on my ribcage, it didn’t seem the slightest bit forward.
He turned to look down at me, and a smile pulled at one corner of his mouth. ‘Well then, best we get the rest of the jobs done early.’
‘We can clean the hand tools together,’ I suggested. ‘That’ll get them done faster. And I’ve told Amy you might take her up the lane to look at the rabbits.’
‘Rabbits?’ Archie swung back to Amy. ‘Will you show me the rabbits, Amy?’
‘Rabbits,’ she confirmed solemnly. ‘Inna lane.’
‘Right, well then I’d better get cleaned up, then Kitty and I will do our last jobs of the day, and as soon as we’re finished, you—’ he tapped her little hand where it lay curled on the table, clutching her pencil ‘—can take me to where the rabbits are playing, before it gets dark.’
He dropped a last kiss on my forehead and went upstairs to wash, and I sat down opposite Amy. For a moment I didn’t say anything, but watched her pencil move across the paper, and saw more curved lines appearing; I couldn’t have said exactly why, but it gave me hope to see it. They seemed so much gentler than those harsh black diagonal lines that slashed the paper from corner to corner.