A Mother's Gift

by Maggie Hope

  ‘How do you feel, Mother?’ he asked as he went over to her and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘If I were you I’d have an early night, I will send Daisy up to you with some light supper if you wish.’

  ‘No no, I’m fine here,’ said Mary Anne. Indeed, though there were shadows beneath her eyes and she was a little pale, she looked quite serene. ‘I’ve sent Maisie upstairs though, she has a headache. Poor Maisie.’

  Poor Maisie, that was how most people thought of his sister, Robert thought. When he had come home from the prisoner-of-war camp in Malaya in 1946 he had been as shocked at her appearance as she had been at his. He himself had recovered fairly well; he was lucky in that he had only been a prisoner for a matter of months. Maisie, however, still moped after her lover who had been an RAF pilot shot down over Arnhem in 1944. Geoffrey Walker had been the only man ever to take an interest in Maisie, so small and thin and mouse-like with her fine fair hair which just missed being blonde and which she kept in an old-fashioned bun at the nape of her neck.

  ‘I’ll go up and see her shortly,’ Robert promised. He was fond of his sister but was beginning to wonder if she did not need professional help to bring her out of her melancholy. There had been some improvement lately; she had had her hair cut in a more fashionable style and, even bought a fashionable hat for the funeral. The death of their stepfather hadn’t helped either, she had told him only that morning that she felt death was all around her.

  ‘Now I’ll ring for tea,’ said Mary Anne.

  They sat drinking tea from an exquisite china tea service, the cups almost transparent they were so fine. Mary Anne ate a sandwich and a slice of fruit cake with evident enjoyment, surprising Robert. But then, he told himself, she had eaten very little since Father died, perhaps it was just the relief that the funeral was finally over that had brought back her appetite.

  ‘Where is Bertram?’ she asked idly after sipping a second cup of tea. She replaced the cup and saucer carefully on the tray then looked up at Robert for his reply.

  ‘I think he went for a walk,’ he answered.

  ‘The fresh air will do him good.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They sat quietly together, looking out at the roses. The weather had improved and evening sunlight shafted across the lawn and along the tops of the sycamore trees bordering the garden. ‘Mr Fox is to read the will tomorrow morning. Eleven-thirty, he said. Is that convenient for you?’

  ‘Quite convenient.’

  ‘He did say there is a major legatee not in the family.’

  ‘Oh?’ Mary Anne sounded barely interested.

  ‘Father asked him not to say who it was until the will was read.’ Robert felt he had to warn his mother that there was something strange about the proceedings, but he didn’t know what. He glanced anxiously at her now. Did she know about his women, his visits to a certain area of Middlesbrough? But surely it could not be one of them.

  ‘That’s not usual, is it?’ asked Mary Anne.

  ‘No. But it is no good speculating about it. We will all know tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes. Well, thank goodness, the Richards part of the business is yours, Robert.’

  ‘Yes. And evidently too small to be included in the nationalisation plans. Now that the coal interests have gone that way.’

  ‘I think I’ll go up now after all, Robert,’ Mary Anne said suddenly. She rose and patted the back of her hair with one hand. ‘I am tired, I have to admit.’

  ‘Yes, you go up Mother. Goodnight.’

  After his mother left the room Robert sat on, thinking of the business and what was going to happen. Everything was in a state of flux at the moment, the Labour government determined to nationalise. The electricity industry had gone in April, coal in 1946. How the miners had loved that, they had shouted for it long enough. Transport and gas had been nationalised, it was all one big new experiment. He was not like some of his colleagues, hoping it would prove disastrous, they didn’t seem to realise that would bring the country to its knees. His stepfather had been going to be one of the executives to run the industry; he hoped they would ask him in place of the old man. It could all be very exciting.

  His thoughts kept returning to the mystery of the two women who had been lurking in the cemetery. But perhaps he was imagining things. They could have been visiting another grave and simply been curious about the funeral.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  ‘WHY DIDN’T YOU tell me, Mother?’

  Kate and Georgina sat, one on each of the two couches which faced each other in the sitting-room. Kate was pale but composed, the shadows under her eyes accentuating her dark eyes. There were a few streaks of grey in her fair hair. Georgina noticed them for the first time and it gave her a small shock. After all, her mother was in her thirties, she wasn’t old. The reality of death had been brought home forcibly to Georgina today though and she looked anxiously at her mother. ‘Don’t bother tonight Mother, I’m sorry I asked.’

  ‘Oh, you might as well know it all, petal,’ Kate sighed. ‘You had to find out Matthew and me weren’t married. Did you not suspect it?’

  Georgie thought back over the years. Father had been away such a lot but then, during the war many of the girls’ fathers had been away. In the forces, or on some sort of war work. And she had got used to it anyway. Still she had thought there was something different about her. The way her mother prevaricated when she asked for her birth certificate. The university had wanted it with her application.

  ‘Won’t your identity card do?’ Kate had asked. ‘All the details are there, surely? Anyway, there’s no rush, you have a few months yet. I’m not even sure it is a good thing to go up a year early. Why not wait until you are eighteen? Have a year at home with me. I’ve seen little enough of you since you went to Saltburn.’

  Georgie thought about this conversation now. For a supposedly bright girl, university material, she had been as dim as a Toe H lamp.

  ‘Tell me then. But stop if you are becoming too tired. I don’t want you to be upset either.’

  ‘It all started, I think, just after the 1926 strike,’ said Kate. She had a faraway look about her. She lifted her still slim legs and tucked them beneath her, holding her ankle with one hand as she talked. Her voice was low and matter of fact, it was almost as if she were talking of someone else.

  ‘I was brought up by my grandda and grandma,’ she began. ‘And Grandda was out of work because the pit was idle; the pit at Winton Colliery. That was where we lived. And one day Grandda and me went to get pitch balls for the fire. We had no coal, you see, and a pit man’s house with no coal is – well, there was no electricity, no other means of heating the house or cooking. And we bumped into a gentleman.’

  Georgie sat as the shadows in the room lengthened and listened. It was a revelation to her. For so long she had wondered how her mother could be content to live in this isolated house in a fold of the moor, living only for her to come home from school. No, that wasn’t right, she lived for Father to come home from his mysterious business. When Georgie had asked questions about it they had always been evaded, his work was very important, they had said, very hush-hush. It was an expression that was common during the war and immediately after it. And her mother also lived for her to come home from school, of course.

  Georgie had idolised her father, she thought of it now as Kate told the story of how ambitious she was as a young girl, how she desperately wanted to become a nurse, how she had actually achieved her ambition in that she had managed to become a probationer nurse. And then how she had met Matthew Hamilton again. And his wife. How he had pursued her. And how that had been the end of her nursing, career. Then Kate sat silent for a long time. A single tear slipped down her face and she wiped it away angrily.

  ‘Oh, Mam, don’t get upset,’ Georgie said, swiftly crossing to the other couch and putting an arm around Kate. ‘Don’t say any more now, there’s no need. I know how you loved Father, I do.’

  Kate looked sideways at her. She blew her nose
and wiped her eyes and patted Georgie’s hand.

  ‘You’re a good lass, Georgie,’ she said, slipping back into the idiom of her youth. ‘But you don’t know the half.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll tell me in your own good time,’ said Georgie. ‘I’ll get Dorothy to start supper now, shall I? I think we could both do with an early night.’

  As she opened the door the telephone began to ring in the hall, causing Kate to jump visibly.

  ‘Who can that be?’ she cried. ‘No one calls here except your father!’ And then she was overwhelmed by the fact that Matthew would never call again, never ever. She sat down suddenly, forced to confront the enormous hole in her life. Whoever was on the telephone didn’t matter compared with that.

  ‘I’ll get it, don’t worry it can’t be anything important,’ Georgina said, trying to reassure her mother. She picked up the telephone from the hall table feeling a little eerie herself.

  ‘Miss Hamilton? This is Joseph Fox. I was your father’s solicitor.’

  ‘Oh. Yes?’

  In that split second many things raced through her mind. Were they about to be evicted from their home? Had she and her mother any rights at all? Had her father made any provision for them? Surely he had! Such was the whirling of her thoughts that she missed what the solicitor was saying at first and had to ask him to repeat it.

  ‘Go to Hamilton Hall? I don’t even know where it is,’ she said. ‘Besides I don’t think my mother would want to go and I don’t want to leave her.’

  ‘I’m sorry Miss Hamilton; I haven’t made myself clear. It is very important that you both go. It is the reading of your father’s will. You wish to know what provision he has made for you and your mother, do you not?’

  ‘But how will we get there?’

  Georgie glanced round to make sure she had closed the door to the sitting-room properly. She did not want her mother to hear this at least not until she herself had had time to think about it. Would her mother want to go to that woman’s house? Mrs Hamilton, she thought and bitterness rose in her throat like bile.

  ‘I will call for you,’ said Mr Fox. ‘At ten o’clock, I think. Then we will be at the Hall in good time.’

  ‘You know where we live?’ Of course he did, she thought. He probably knew all about her. Including the fact that she was a bastard. She made up her mind quickly as she heard her mother’s footsteps. ‘All right. Ten o’clock, yes. I will ring you back if there is any difficulty.’

  ‘Until tomorrow, Miss Hamilton.’

  ‘Who was that, Georgie?’ her mother asked as she came into the hall.

  ‘I’ll explain in a minute. Go and sit down Mother, I’ll bring the supper,’ said Georgie.

  ‘No. I’m not hungry, I think I’ll just, go straight up to bed. Who did you say it was?’

  ‘Go on up then, I’ll bring you some hot milk and biscuits. I’ll tell you all about it then, Mam.’

  Kate was already trailing up the stairs. She couldn’t summon enough interest to insist, in fact she had already forgotten what it was she was asking about. Her thoughts were in the past, her life in Winton Colliery. Grandda, Billy and now Matthew, all dead. And Gran. ‘It will all end in tears,’ Gran had said and she had been right as she always was.

  When Georgie took up the tray her mother was standing by the window looking out over the darkening moor. She was still dressed.

  ‘I thought you were going to bed, Mam,’ she said. ‘Come on, I’ll help you get ready.’ She hesitated to tell her mother of the reason the solicitor had called, maybe she would leave it until tomorrow. But when she was settled against the pillows and with the cup of hot milk in her hand, Kate looked up suddenly.

  ‘I don’t know what we are going to do, Georgie. We will have to leave this house. We have no rights, you know, no rights at all. I suppose I could go back to nursing …’ Her voice trailed away.

  ‘I think Father will have provided for us, Mam. I was going to tell you, that was a solicitor on the phone earlier.’

  She told her mother all that Mr Fox had told her. ‘We must be ready at ten o’clock,’ she added. ‘But if you don’t want to go to the Hall, well then, we’ll just say so, I’ll ring him back.’

  ‘No,’ said Kate, surprising Georgie by the sudden strength in her voice. ‘We’ll go. And with our heads held high.’

  She had thought she wouldn’t sleep but surprisingly she soon drifted off, still thinking of the old days in the colliery house at Winton. Her thoughts carried on into her dreams, so vivid she was a child again.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  MR FOX HANDED KATE out of the car before the entrance to Hamilton Hall. He smiled at her gently. ‘Courage, my dear,’ he said. He was a man of middle age with silver hair, which was receding so that his forehead seemed elongated. He was tall and thin and dressed impeccably in pin-striped trousers and dark coat with a silver grey tie. He had a kindly face, Kate decided, and she put her hand on his arm trustingly.

  Beside her, Georgina stood, her hair clipped up on top of her head in an effort to make her look older. She wore a plain grey dress with a full skirt cut in the ‘new look’ fashion that was a reaction to the restrictions of the war years. Her shoes were grey and flat with wedge heels and on her head she wore a tiny hat of grey velvet and a wisp of lace.

  ‘You must wear a hat, dear,’ Dorothy had said. ‘As a mark of respect at least.’

  Georgie followed her mother and Mr Fox up to the heavy oak front door, and waited as he rang the bell. Suddenly her stomach was full of butterflies, she fought down a feeling of sickness. Beside her she could feel her mother’s tension, see the slight tremble of her hand on Mr Fox’s arm. She took a deep breath as the door opened and they were ushered inside.

  ‘The family is in the drawing-room, sir,’ said John Benson, the butler.

  ‘Thank you, Benson.’

  Georgina barely had time to note the richness of her surroundings before they were in the drawing-room and there they were, Matthew Hamilton’s other family. Only the women were seated, the men were in a group in the middle of the room, talking among themselves quietly. There was an instant hush as everyone turned to look at Kate and Georgina who stood uncertainly close together.

  Mr Fox went forward and placed his briefcase on the table.

  ‘Good morning to you all,’ he said pleasantly. ‘This is Catherine Hamilton and her daughter, Georgina. They have an interest in Mr Hamilton’s will.’

  Mary Anne gasped. ‘I know you!’ she cried. ‘You’re a nurse, aren’t you?’

  Kate stepped forward. ‘I was,’ she said.

  ‘You had better sit down,’ said Robert. He indicated two hard chairs placed side by side but made no move to help them.

  ‘Sit down? Sit down? What do you mean? How dare you insult my mother by inviting them to sit down in my mother’s house? She’s a tart and the other one’s a tart’s bastard daughter! How dare they call themselves Hamilton? I insist you throw them out, if you don’t, I will!’

  ‘Bertram! Watch your tongue!’ Robert said sharply.

  ‘Don’t you tell me what to do! I am the head of this house now, remember. I’ll say what I like.’

  ‘No you won’t, not in front to Mother,’ said Robert. ‘Now sit down and behave yourself.’

  Bertram flushed a deep brick red. ‘Don’t talk to me as though I were a child, Robert! At least I am defending Mother. You don’t seem to care.’

  ‘Sit down, Bertram,’ Mary Anne suddenly interjected. ‘Both of you, sit down. In fact, we will all sit quietly and listen to Mr Fox.’

  Taken by surprise, her two sons sat down and stared at her.

  ‘Sit down, please, Nurse Benfield, isn’t it? And you too, dear,’ said Mary Anne. Everyone gazed at her in astonishment but she was perfectly composed.

  Kate and Georgina sat down on the hard chairs. ‘I wondered if you would remember me,’ said Kate.

  ‘You haven’t changed,’ replied Mary Anne. ‘At least not much.’

  ‘You kn
ow this woman?’ gasped Bertram.

  ‘Yes, indeed, I do. It was a long time ago, before you were born. I had a miscarriage. She was very kind to me when I was in hospital.’ Mary Anne spoke in a very matter-of-fact tone of voice and as though Kate was an old friend.

  ‘But Mother—’ said Bertram but was interrupted by Mr Fox who cleared his throat and picked up a document tied with a red tape bow.

  ‘Perhaps we can get on,’ he said. ‘I do have a lot to get through. If you don’t mind, that is,’ he nodded his head deferentially to Mary Anne.

  ‘By all means,’ she said and settled down in her chair.

  ‘This is the last will and testament of Matthew Hamilton, ironmaster, of this parish,’ he began.

  Ironmaster? thought Georgina. But her thoughts were full of bewildering questions. Surreptitiously she looked at the family. Mary Anne, so calm though she had just lost her husband. She wore a black dress, very plain but with a diamond brooch at the neck. Her hair was fair and streaked with grey and she wore no make-up on her pale face. Beside Georgie’s own mother she looked colourless. And her daughter, a younger edition of herself, though her dress was more stylish with a full, new-look full skirt which fell decorously over her knees. Her neat ankles were crossed and slightly under her seat. She seemed to take no interest in the proceedings but kept her eyes on her hands, which were clasped, on her lap.

  Robert, the oldest son, looked like her yet did not. In him the fair hair had a natural shine to it and though it was cut in a ‘short back and sides’ he had it longer at the front and combed back in a quiff. He sat straight-backed in his chair; his long legs crossed one over the other. He wore a slight frown.