His Brother's Wife

by Val Wood

  He grunted and moved forward. ‘I don’t believe in all that mumbo-jumbo about churching and christenings anyway. Noah wasn’t christened, though Fletcher was – Mrs Tuke insisted.’

  He peered over from the bottom of the bed and gave a start, narrowing his eyes. ‘He’s a darkie!’

  ‘No he’s not!’ she admonished. ‘He’s got black curly hair.’ She uncovered the baby’s face. ‘His skin isn’t dark. But he’s mebbe got some foreign blood.’

  Mr Tuke shook his head adamantly. ‘Not from me!’ Then he hesitated, his eyes shifting about the room as if he was considering what else to say, unaware that Harriet knew he couldn’t blame his wife.

  ‘From somewhere in ’past, mebbe?’ Harriet gave him an opportunity to save himself from humiliation.

  ‘Aye, that’s it. Mebbe on your side. Lots o’ foreigners in Hull, being a port town.’

  Harriet laughed. ‘Mebbe so, Mr Tuke.’ She held his gaze until he turned away, unable to hold the contact. When he reached the door, she called softly, ‘He’s my son, Mr Tuke, and I’ll love him no matter who his forebears were. You’ll remember that, won’t you?’

  He looked back at her and licked his lips, then gave a slight nod. She continued to gaze at him and he ran his fingers through his beard, teasing it, as if debating whether she knew the truth about him and Mrs Tuke and Noah.

  Downstairs, after Noah had left to take Mary home, Ellen kept herself busy; she tidied the kitchen even though it was never untidy. She filled the kettle and put it over the fire and thought that maybe she should have gone up before Mr Tuke did. But she’d been afraid to. She’d told Noah that she would go up presently and he’d looked at her oddly, as if wondering why she wasn’t eager to see the new baby. Then he told his father to wash his hands and go up to see his grandson. He’d said it proudly, and seemed to grow in stature.

  Ellen laid a tray and put a cup and saucer, a milk jug and the teapot on it and waited for Mr Tuke to come down. When he did, he went straight to his chair by the fire and sat staring into the flames.

  ‘Well?’ she queried. ‘Your first grandson, is it?’

  ‘Aye, and not yours!’ He turned to face her. ‘Did you tell her?’

  ‘Tell her what?’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about, woman. She looked at me all knowing.’

  ‘You’re imagining it,’ she said, pouring boiling water into the teapot. ‘It’s your guilt mekking you think she’s seen through you.’

  ‘She’ll mek a good mother,’ he muttered. ‘Better’n you ever did.’

  ‘And your son,’ she answered bitterly. ‘Will he mek a good father?’ She picked up the tray. ‘Just like you did,’ she scoffed.

  She carried the tray up the stairs and along the passage to Harriet’s room. The room that Fletcher had decided to make his own after Noah had brought a wife home. She’s nowt to me, she thought, but if Fletcher had brought a wife home instead of Noah, how would I have felt? She gave a great sigh. I don’t want any more emotion in my life; I don’t want to care for anyone ever again. Except for Fletcher, of course, and who knows if I’ll ever see him again.

  She quietly opened the door and saw that Harriet was sleeping, her cheek gently touching the baby’s head. Ellen put down the tray on a small table and tiptoed towards the bed. She took a sudden breath when she saw his dark curls and clutched her hands to her chest. She saw his sweet repose; his soft and luminous skin the colour of cinnamon, and the gentle rise and fall of his breath as he slept, and stifled a sob.

  Oh, Fletcher. She wept silently for her son and thought of the day he was born. Why did you have to leave?

  Harriet opened her eyes and smiled. She looked happy. ‘Hello,’ she murmured. ‘I must have dropped off. Have you – have you seen – my son?’

  Ellen cleared her throat. ‘I have. You’ve a fine boy. And so quick, Mary said. I’ve brought you some tea. You must be gasping. Would you like summat to eat?’

  ‘No, thank you, but I’m thirsty. I could drink a gallon o’ water.’

  ‘Have your tea, then, and I’ll fetch you some boiled water to sip.’ Ellen looked away. ‘It’ll help wi’ your milk.’

  Harriet sat up and drank the tea and Ellen sat on the edge of her bed facing her.

  ‘Isn’t he ’most beautiful bairn you’ve ever seen?’ Harriet said softly, looking down at him. ‘Or do all mothers think that?’

  ‘I imagine they do,’ Ellen replied. ‘Fletcher was dark-haired when he was born, but he lost it after a few weeks and when it grew back it was much fairer.’

  ‘Fletcher this and Fletcher that!’

  They hadn’t heard the bedroom door open, and looked up sharply to see Noah glaring at his mother.

  ‘What about me?’ he shouted. ‘What colour was my hair? It’s allus Fletcher, isn’t it? Even on ’very day my son is born you’ve got to talk about Fletcher. You nivver say Noah did this or that, it’s as if I was nivver owt to do wi’ you, as if I just appeared out o’ nowhere.’

  Ellen gazed at him and then clasped her hands together. ‘That’s because you did.’ Her words were plain, without warmth or feeling. ‘You were thrust into my arms. I didn’t know whose child you were, who your mother was, or owt about you. Your father just said here’s another son for you; look after him.’

  She held his gaze, which was one of shock and bewilderment. ‘And I did, to ’best o’ my ability. I fed you, clothed you, sent you to school, just as I did wi’ Fletcher. But you were not mine. Never was and never will be. I had a son already and I hadn’t asked for another. So if you want to know more about where you came from, then you must ask your father. He fathered you and brought you into ’world, not me, and he’s the one who named you and shaped you into what you are. So ask him.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Ellen got up from the bed and left the room and Noah moved aside to let her pass, not saying a word. He seemed to have had all the breath knocked out of him.

  Then he looked at Harriet and his eyes narrowed accusingly and in one stride he was by her bed. ‘Did you know?’

  She nodded. ‘Only recently. I asked her if she was looking forward to having a grandchild.’ Harriet suddenly felt very emotional and put her hand across her face. ‘She told me no,’ she choked. ‘Because you were not her son and therefore any child of ours was not of her blood.’ She let out a breath. ‘I couldn’t believe what she was saying, but it was just as she’s told you: your father brought you home and gave you to her to look after. He wanted another son and she – it seems she couldn’t conceive.’

  It would be too cruel, she thought, to tell Noah that his birth mother had worked in a brothel and that Ellen had kept his father from her bed; he’d already suffered a brutal blow discovering that he wasn’t Ellen’s son, but perhaps it would help him to understand why she always favoured Fletcher.

  ‘But Noah,’ she said softly, ‘we have a son. Daniel is ours and your father is his grandfather. I think he could be fond of him. He seemed quite proud, although he wondered about his curly hair.’ She gave a nervous smile for them to share, a whimsical quip. ‘He said it was probably from someone in my family’s background.’

  ‘Mebbe it is,’ he declared and turned and left the room. She heard him clatter downstairs and then the crash of the back door.

  ‘Not a good start to your new life, Daniel,’ she whispered. ‘But you won’t remember this and I’ll try not to let it bother me or my milk might turn sour.’

  She got up the next day. She felt fit enough, although tired, as she’d slept only in snatches, restless with jumbled dreams of Noah fighting with his father and Ellen, telling her that he wanted to move away from Marsh Farm, being persuaded to stay as he was the only son at home now that Fletcher had gone. She felt guilty too of not pulling her weight, as if she too was a usurper, just as Noah was.

  When she came downstairs Noah barely acknowledged her, and neither was he speaking to his father or Ellen. He was like a simmering kettle on red embers in danger of boil
ing over.

  She’d asked Ellen if it was all right to bring down a chest drawer which she’d lined with a blanket from her bed, and now she found a place for it in the kitchen, away from draughts, not too near the fire, and in a spot where she felt that it wouldn’t be under anyone’s feet. But when she got up to go outside to collect the eggs and let the hens out, Ellen rebuked her sharply. ‘I’ve seen to ’em.’

  ‘I’ll do ’second milking then, shall I?’ Harriet suggested.

  ‘No. You can start next week,’ Ellen told her. ‘If you do ower much in ’first few days your milk might fail and then there’ll be a screeching bairn to contend wi’.’

  ‘I need to do something,’ Harriet pleaded, but Ellen ignored her.

  The atmosphere was almost unbearable. Mr Tuke sat silently by the fire and Ellen seemed to be always at the sink, either scrubbing vegetables or washing pans. Each time Noah came in for a meal he ate what was put in front of him and made no effort to answer Harriet’s futile attempts at conversation.

  After a week Harriet’s nerves were at breaking point and her only pleasure was in taking Daniel upstairs to wash him and feed him and sit with him on her bed as he slept in her arms. She talked soothingly to him when he was awake, and he looked up at her as if understanding her soft words before falling asleep again.

  That night she left the kitchen after supper, murmuring good night, and went upstairs. A little while later she heard Noah’s footsteps on the treads and got out of bed. Casting a glance at the sleeping Daniel, she slipped barefoot to the room they used to share, gave a soft tap on the door and, after waiting a second, went in.

  Noah was sitting crouched on the side of the bed with his elbows on his knees and his hands clenched. He glanced at her but didn’t speak.

  ‘Noah,’ she whispered, ‘we must talk. I can’t bear this silence. Nobody is saying anything.’

  ‘Nobody has owt to say.’ His voice was flat and low.

  ‘It’s driving me crazy,’ she told him. ‘This should be a happy time for us, but it isn’t. We have to resolve this awful mood which is affecting us all.’

  ‘Are you saying it’s my fault?’ he muttered.

  ‘No! Anybody’s but yours. You’re innocent in this matter – shame of it is that you weren’t told before. You should have been, and mebbe then you’d have accepted it.’

  ‘Do you think that Fletcher knew – knows?’

  Harriet shook her head. ‘Your ma – Ellen – told me that nobody knew, onny her and your da.’

  He grunted. ‘And ’woman who gave birth to me.’

  ‘Of course, but we don’t know who she is.’

  He glanced at her. ‘Da must, allus supposing he looked at her while they were begetting me.’ His mouth turned down. ‘I reckon he did it out of spite, to get back at her.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ellen – Mrs Tuke.’ It was as if he could no longer call her mother. ‘You’ve seen what a cold woman she is. I bet she kept him from her bed and that’s why she couldn’t get wi’ child.’

  Which was true, Harriet thought: on Ellen’s own admission she had banned Mr Tuke from her bed on discovering he had been to the brothel.

  ‘We’d be guessing, Noah,’ she said simply, ‘and what’s gone is gone. That was their life. We have to make ours.’

  He knitted his black eyebrows together and pondered, then said, ‘If I told you that I can’t remember a single kind word in my whole life, would you believe me?’ Before she could answer, he added, ‘No, mebbe just once.’ He rubbed his hand over his bristly chin. ‘Fletcher. When I was about six or thereabouts, he asked me, in front o’ Ma – Ellen – if I wanted to go fishing wi’ him. He was going wi’ some lads to fish in one of ’field drains. An’ she said no, he can’t go, I’ll not have you being responsible for him, an’ then Da came in and asked what was I blubbering about. She told him an’ he grabbed me an’ said, You don’t want to go wi’ that beggarly upstart. If you want to go fishing, then I’ll tek you. But what I remember most was Fletcher lookin’ at both of ’em as if he didn’t understand what was going on, and then at me as if mebbe I did. And I didn’t.’ He swallowed. ‘I onny knew that I wanted to go wi’ him, an’ not wi’ Da.’

  Harriet sat on the bed next to him and put her hand over his and thought how disgraceful that parents could transfer their hatred of each other to their sons. But why, she thought. Why is there so much discord? There must have been an attraction between the Tukes in the first place, unless of course Mr Tuke had taken advantage of Ellen, as Noah did with me, and she felt compelled to marry him when she found she was pregnant.

  She sighed. ‘Have you spoken to your father about what you know?’ Sullenly, he shook his head, and she said softly, ‘I’m sorry, Noah. Would you like to leave this place and find somewhere else? Mebbe Master Hart has another small farm he’d rent you. I’d help. I’m learning all ’time. We could keep enough livestock to earn a living for just us, and then if we have more bairns we could—’

  ‘What?’ he scowled. ‘We could do what? You mean leave this farm when it’s as much mine as it is Fletcher’s? No. I’m me farther’s son just as much as Fletcher is, even if we’ve got different mothers, and he’s jiggered off to God knows where, an’ if he thinks he can come back one day an’ tek over just because he’s ’eldest, he’s got another think coming.’

  Well, I tried, Harriet reflected. But ’damage is done. I thought he’d softened a little when he was talking about their childhood, but he hasn’t. There’s an open wound which animosity has drip-drip-dripped on to like water falling on stone, scouring out a deep cavern which won’t ever heal or close over.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  At Hart Holme Manor preparations were under way for the Christmas house party. The guests included Rebecca Wilkie and her brother Laurence, whom Amy had invited to the summer party back in August, on which occasion both Christopher and Melissa had realized that Laurence Wilkie was the object of Amy’s desire, and the reason for much sighing and absent-minded behaviour.

  Everyone was due to arrive by Christmas Eve, including Christopher’s sister-in-law Deborah, her husband and their daughters and three more young men to even up the numbers, and Melissa couldn’t decide whether to tell Christopher their news before the festivities began or after everyone had left the day after Boxing Day.

  She hadn’t been totally sure of her condition and had not yet consulted a doctor, but after almost six years of counting dates she felt confident that after so much yearning she was at last expecting a child. Her sickness she had passed off as the result of having eaten something that had disagreed with her, and as it hadn’t lasted very long Christopher hadn’t suspected anything.

  There was no doubt in her mind that she had seduced her husband, not nightly, as Harriet Tuke had said of her husband, but several times a week after that first glorious night when he had returned in June from fetching Amy home. She thought that Christopher had at first been rather shocked by her apparent enjoyment of their union, but when on the following evening she had crept naked from her bed and into his during the early hours, he had whispered that he hadn’t thought women enjoyed this experience in the same way as men.

  ‘You mean ladies, don’t you, Christopher?’ she’d whispered in his ear, running her hands beneath his nightshirt. ‘Ladies of a certain class who have been told by their mamas that this wonderful act of love is to be tolerated and not enjoyed.’

  ‘Why yes,’ he’d croaked. ‘That is what I was taught to think . . . and it is true that—’

  He’d broken off and taken a gasping breath, and Melissa guessed that in spite of what her wandering fingers were doing to him, gentleman that he was he wouldn’t give away the fact that his first wife Jane had come from that same restraining background, and that, she thought, is why I haven’t conceived; he’s treated me as if I were made of fragile glass, whereas – she’d smiled in the darkness and arched her body against his – I’m actually as tough as the boots he wears when he’s
walking his land.

  It had been October before she began to suspect and she had delayed telling him, not wanting to disappoint if it should be a false alarm, but now, on the day before their guests were due to arrive, she was perfectly sure and deliriously happy; her waistline had thickened slightly and when she looked in the mirror she saw that her eyes were bright and her skin clear.

  ‘Melissa.’ Christopher came into her sitting room where she was sewing. ‘Thomson is unwell again and, as it’s so bitterly cold, I’ve decided that I’ll deliver the birds to Mrs Marshall and Ellen Tuke myself. But is today too early? I don’t want to leave everything until the last minute, even though our guests won’t arrive until late tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m quite sure they’ll both be delighted to see you today.’ She smiled up at him, revelling in the secret that she would soon disclose. ‘If you leave it until tomorrow they might think their birds aren’t coming; and Mrs Marshall always likes a chat with you, doesn’t she? Tomorrow you’d be in a rush to come home to greet our guests.’

  ‘I would, that’s true,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’ll go now and be back for lunch. I’ll call on Mrs Marshall first and then go on to the Tukes.’

  ‘Do ask how the young Mrs Tuke is, won’t you? I think she’ll have been delivered of her child by now, and if you see her, will you ask her to come and see me after Christmas? I want to find out when she can come back to do the ironing.’

  ‘Surely she won’t. Not if she’s just had a child.’

  Melissa set her stitch and then looked up and smiled at him again. ‘Oh, I think she will. She’ll be glad to get out of the house, I should think. And ask her to bring the baby.’

  He bent down and kissed her cheek. ‘You’re a minx,’ he said. ‘And you look beautiful. Have I told you that recently?’

  ‘No,’ she sighed. ‘Not for ages, not since last night in fact. Don’t be long,’ she added, determining now to give him the news when he came back. ‘There’s something I’d like to discuss.’