‘Oh no, it’s not Fleur’s dad, is it? You haven’t heard something, have you, Ma?’
‘No, no. Just – sit down, Robbie. Please.’
Robbie lowered himself into the old man’s chair and waited whilst his mother settled herself on the opposite side of the fireplace. For a long moment, she stared into the fire, the flames dancing on her beautiful face. Robbie stared at her, marvelling at her smooth skin, at how young she still looked. It never ceased to amaze him that there wasn’t a line of men beating a path to their door.
Slowly, she raised her head to meet his gaze. ‘There’s something I have to tell you. Something that – maybe – I should have told you years ago, but . . . but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was so frightened of . . . of losing you.’
‘Losing me!’ Robbie leant forward, a little awkwardly because of the thick plaster on his leg still hampering his movements. Then he moved to sit on the hearthrug at her feet, taking her hands and holding them tightly. Earnestly, he said, ‘Darling Ma, whatever it is, you couldn’t lose me. Not ever. Not . . . not the way you’re meaning.’
They stared at each other for a moment, each knowing just how close they had come to Robbie being lost, but a different kind of ‘lost’.
‘When . . . when you were missing, Jake told Fleur and . . . and it’s not fair of me to expect her to keep such a secret from you – from her husband.’
Robbie was silent, giving his mother time to tell her story. A story that was obviously difficult, maybe painful, for her to tell.
He stroked her hands tenderly. Those clever hands that had earned them a living all these years. Hands that had caressed him and nurtured him. Hands that lovingly nursed the old man now asleep upstairs.
Then slowly, haltingly at first, Meg began to tell Robbie about her past. Her shameful past. How she had once been a wilful, selfish girl, who had cared nothing for the feelings of others in her desire for security.
‘You’ll have to be patient with me, because I want to tell you everything. Right from the very beginning. I’ll miss nothing out and then you can . . . can judge for yourself just what sort of a woman you have for a mother.’
He squeezed her hands encouragingly. ‘I’m not going to judge you, Ma. Whatever it is.’
Meg lifted her shoulders in a tiny shrug. ‘Well, we’ll see,’ she murmured.
Another silence before she took a deep breath and began. ‘We were such a happy little family, Dad, Mam, Bobbie and me.’
‘Bobbie? Who’s Bobbie?’
Meg nodded and smiled a little. She was perhaps the one who was going to have to be patient with his interruptions. ‘My little brother. You’re named after him.’
‘Your brother? I didn’t know you had a brother.’
Meg nodded and her voice was husky as she went on. ‘We lived in a small cottage on Middleditch Farm . . .’
Again Robbie could not keep silent. ‘Middleditch Farm? But – but that’s Fleur’s home . . .’ He stopped, realizing that the farmhouse now lay in ruins.
‘Pops worked as a waggoner for the Smallwoods who owned the farm then. And I worked as a dairy maid for Mrs Smallwood.’ A small smile twitched at her mouth as she added wryly, ‘She was a tartar to work for. I was always in trouble with her. “You’ll come to a bad end,” she used to say to me.’ Again she paused. ‘Maybe she was right.’
‘Oh, Ma, don’t say that. You call this “a bad end”?’
‘No, of course not. I’m content. At least . . .’ She sighed inwardly. Was she about to jeopardize her contented life with her son when he heard the truth about her? Bravely, she pushed on. ‘I was a bit cheeky and . . . and a bit of a flirt with the village lads. I was friendly with Alice Smallwood, their daughter. She was older than me and – if anything – it was her that was the flirt, but her mother thought I was the bad influence on her. Anyway, we jogged along quite happily, I thought, until one night my dad came home and said we’d both been dismissed without a reference and we were being turned out of our home too. It was a tied cottage, you see. It went with the job.’ Meg bit her lip as if reliving the moment. ‘I thought it was my fault. I thought I’d been cheeky to the missis once too often.’
‘And was it?’ Robbie asked softly.
Meg shook her head. ‘No. It . . . it was Pops. He – well, I’ll come to that in a minute. We had to leave the very next day and the only place we could go was the workhouse.’
‘The workhouse?’ Robbie was shocked. ‘That big building on the outskirts of South Monkford?’
‘You’ve seen it?’
He nodded. ‘Oh, Ma,’ he breathed sadly. ‘You’ve lived in the workhouse?’
She smiled thinly. ‘Dad took us there.’ Talking of the times past, Meg referred to him by the name she had called him then, not ‘Pops’ as he was now known. ‘Mam – she was expecting another baby – Bobbie and me. He left us there. Said he was going to look for work and that he’d come back for us . . .’ Her voice trailed away for a moment, but then she took another deep breath and continued. ‘But the weeks went by and he didn’t come back. We had to work of course – in that place. Mam wasn’t very well but they let her do mending and easy work. And they put me to work with the school marm. And for a while, I thought she was my friend. She was very kind to me. She was in charge of all the children and had to look after them all the time. One night, there was a little girl who was ill.’ Meg glanced at Robbie. ‘Actually, it was Betsy, Fleur’s mum.’
Now Robbie was truly horrified. ‘Fleur’s mum was in the workhouse?’
Meg nodded. ‘And so was Jake. He’d been born in there. So that’s where I met them. Jake and I were friends even though we were segregated. Girls and boys, men and women. Poor Jake got a beating once for being seen with me.’
‘And Fleur’s mum? Were you friends with her?’
Meg ran her tongue round her dry lips. ‘Not . . . not exactly. She was younger than us. Jake and me, I mean. Anyway, this night she was ill, the school marm left me in charge of Betsy when Isaac Pendleton sent for her. He was the master of the workhouse – a lecherous old devil . . .’ She paused and then put her head on one side thoughtfully. ‘No, actually, that’s not quite fair. And I am trying to tell you this very truthfully. He was a ladies’ man, but he could be very kind.’ She sighed. ‘I didn’t see it that way then, but now I have to admit that he was. In his own way. Well, at that time he had his eye on Louisa, the school marm—’
Again, Robbie could not help interrupting. ‘That’s not the woman Fleur calls Aunt Louisa, is it? Mrs Dr Collins?’
‘Yes. She was working as the schoolmistress at the workhouse. I believe she had an elderly mother she was supporting. She was engaged to Philip Collins then, and was trying to avoid old Isaac as much as she could. So, this particular night, she left her watch with me and told me that after a certain time, I was to go and knock on his door and say that she was needed – that Betsy was worse. I did just as she said, but when we got back the watch was missing and she accused me of having stolen it. I hadn’t, of course. Whatever else I may be, I’m not a thief. Anyway, it turned out that Betsy had it. She’d wanted to hear it ticking. It reminded her of her daddy, she said. Louisa apologized but I was impulsive and fiery in those days—’
‘Must be the red hair,’ Robbie teased and they both smiled.
‘And I was unforgiving. Oh, Robbie, how unforgiving I was. I suppose, looking back, that was what caused all the trouble. If only I had been more willing to forgive and forget then maybe—’
‘Go on, Ma,’ he prompted gently as Meg seemed to get side-tracked. ‘What happened?’
‘I refused to work with Louisa any more. I couldn’t forgive her for having accused me. And – quite wrongly – I bore Betsy a grudge too. I said I’d rather scrub floors than work with Louisa. And I did,’ she added wryly. She sighed again and went on. ‘Anyway, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. Earlier that same day, my mother had gone into labour and the baby was stillborn.’
She saw Robbi
e wince but he said nothing.
‘So a couple of weeks later I decided I should try to find my dad and tell him what had happened to Mam and the baby. And . . . and I just wanted to see him anyway. I got permission from the master to go in search of him, and Jake came with me.’ Now she smiled. ‘Without permission.’
‘Ooh-er,’ Robbie said imagining the severe punishment he might have incurred.
‘He didn’t care. He wanted to be with me.’
‘Did you find your dad? Pops?’
‘Oh yes, we found him all right.’ Meg’s voice was suddenly hard as she relived that dreadful day. ‘We went to the racecourse. He was so good with horses that Farmer Smallwood sometimes took Dad with him when he went to the races. And then we saw him, walking along, bold as you like, with his arm around Alice Smallwood.’
Robbie blinked. ‘His arm? Alice Smallwood?’
Meg nodded and now there was no hiding the bitterness in her tone. ‘My father had been having an affair with the daughter of his – of our – employers. They had found out and turned him and all his family out because of it. So, it wasn’t my fault as I had feared. It was his.’
‘Pops? I can’t believe it.’
Meg raised a smile. ‘Oh, Pops wasn’t always the frail old man you see now.’
‘Well, no. When he first came to live with us he was still – well – quite sprightly.’
‘When he was younger, he was a fine figure of a man, I have to admit.’
There was a long silence before Robbie asked gently, ‘So – what happened then?’
‘I went back to the workhouse, but from that moment on I cut him out of my life and vowed I’d never forgive him. It was up to me to take care of my mother. I went out into the town to seek work and I found it. With poor Percy Rodwell in his tailor’s shop.’
‘Why do you say “poor” Percy Rodwell?’
Meg sighed. ‘He was a lovely man. A kind and generous man and I . . . I seduced him.’
‘Oh, Ma! Whatever next?’ Robbie began to laugh, but seeing his mother’s serious face, he stopped. ‘Mind you,’ he added. ‘You’re still a stunner, so I expect the poor bloke hadn’t got a chance.’
For a brief moment Meg’s eyes sparkled with mischief. ‘He hadn’t.’
She explained about his long-standing engagement with the sour-faced Miss Finch and how, when Percy jilted her to marry Meg, he found himself in court on a charge of breach of promise. ‘Poor Percy,’ she murmured. ‘He really didn’t deserve all the trouble I brought to his door.’
‘What happened to your mother and to your little brother?’
‘Bobbie fell ill soon after I’d found out about my father.’
Robbie was intrigued by the way Meg kept referring to the man he knew affectionately as ‘Pops’ as ‘my father’. It was as if she, too, couldn’t think of them now as one and the same person.
‘And he died. D’you know?’ she said, the sadness still in her tone even after all the years. ‘We buried little Bobbie on my sixteenth birthday.’
‘And . . . and your mother?’
Meg’s mouth hardened even more. ‘She became Isaac Pendleton’s mistress. I disapproved and refused to see her ever again. Jake tried to persuade me to go to see her. In the end I did, but I was told she had no wish to see me. I think it was a lie – in fact, I know it was now. I did go, truly I did.’ She met his gaze, pleading with him to believe her. He gave her hands another little squeeze. ‘But she fell ill and died before . . . before I could make it up with her.’
‘So why did you think all this was so very dreadful, Ma? I mean, I know it’s a shame you didn’t make it up with your mother, but you were young and . . .’
‘I haven’t finished yet.’
‘Ah.’
‘I married Percy and the following year Louisa and Philip were married. Then the war came. Jake volunteered in 1916 and he married Betsy before he went. Then Philip went too. They were lucky – they both came back, but then we got that dreadful epidemic of influenza. Percy caught it.’ She bit her lip. ‘And I called Philip – Dr Collins. I . . . I’d always known he . . . he was attracted to me and . . . and I was lonely. Percy was ill – dying – and I . . . I mean we—’
‘You had an affair with Dr Collins?’ Robbie said gently, without any note of censure in his tone.
Meg nodded and tears filled her eyes. ‘It was wicked of me. I . . . I still felt resentment against Louisa for believing I could have stolen her watch. You see? I never forgave anyone. And yet I did worse things myself than ever they’d done. Far worse.’
‘How long did the affair go on?’
‘Not long. When Percy died, Philip had an attack of conscience. It finished, but by then, of course, you’d been conceived.’
Robbie raised her hands to his lips and kissed them gently. ‘So – Dr Philip Collins is my natural father?’
‘Yes,’ Meg whispered. ‘But I want you to believe me, Robbie, that whilst I do regret so many of the things I did, I do not regret having you. Not for one moment. And if I hadn’t had the affair, I wouldn’t have had you. But it wasn’t really until after you were born that I changed.’
Swiftly she recounted what Jake had already told Fleur about Miss Finch and her twisted belief that she had a right to Meg’s baby boy. ‘Angry and disgusted though Jake was with me – oh, he knew all about me. There was no hiding the truth from Jake – he still came to my rescue when I needed him. I suppose,’ she ended reflectively, ‘that’s why Betsy has hated me all these years. From what Fleur says, Betsy believed that Jake still loves me.’
‘Maybe he does, Ma,’ Robbie said softly. There was a long silence between them until Robbie said at last, ‘And what about – my father? Does he know that I’m his son? Has he always known?’
Meg nodded. ‘He came to see me when he heard you’d been posted missing. He . . . he said that if . . . if a miracle happened and you came back that he wanted to meet you. Get to know you.’
‘Did he indeed? And what would his wife say to that? Does she know, d’you think?’
‘Yes. She does now. Perhaps – perhaps she’s always suspected, but now she knows for certain. You . . . you’re so like he used to be as a young man. Anyone knowing him then and seeing you now . . .’
‘So that’s why she looked so startled that day I met her in the cafe with Fleur. I thought she was going to pass out.’
‘It must have been a shock for her. Specially when she found out just who you were.’
Again there was a long silence between them, before she asked tentatively, ‘Do . . . do you want to meet him?’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Oh, it’s not up to me. Not any more.’
‘But will it cause you pain? I wouldn’t want that, darling Ma.’
She looked down into his upturned face, his handsome, open, loving face, and tears filled her eyes. ‘You . . . you don’t hate me, then?’
‘Oh, Ma!’ Again he kissed her fingers. ‘How could you even think such a thing?’
‘I . . . I thought you might be disgusted. I . . . I wasn’t a very nice person back then, Robbie.’
‘You had a tough time.’ He laughed gently. ‘Because of that old rogue up there. Who’d have thought old Pops could do such a thing? The old rascal, him.’
Suddenly, Meg was frightened. She clung to Robbie. ‘Oh, you won’t say anything to him. Oh, please, Robbie, don’t—’
‘Of course I won’t. If you can forgive him, then I certainly can.’
‘And . . . and you forgive me?’
‘There’s nothing for me to forgive where you’re concerned. I’m still me, whoever my father is.’ He paused and cocked his head on one side. ‘Did you love him very much, Ma?’
Meg bit her lip. ‘That . . . that’s the worst part. I don’t think I loved him at all. I was just lonely and . . . and he was handsome and besotted with me.’ She looked him straight in the eyes then, meeting his gaze as she said solemnly, ‘There’s only one man I’ve ever truly
loved, but I was too blind, too ambitious and too selfish to see it. And I’ve spent the rest of my life regretting that – through my own stupidity – I lost him.’
Slowly, Robbie nodded. ‘You’re talking about Fleur’s dad, aren’t you?’
Meg nodded and whispered, ‘Yes. Jake was the only man I’ve ever really loved. And – once upon a time – I know he did love me. But I lost him. I lost my beloved Jake.’
Forty-Eight
Fleur knocked on the door of the terraced house and then waited for what seemed an age. At last, thinking they must be out, she turned away, disappointed. But she had only taken a few steps when the door opened and Robbie stood there.
‘Sorry, it takes me a while to get to the door. Fleur, darling, how is he?’
‘Oh, Robbie!’ She rushed to him and was enfolded in his strong arms. He held her tightly, believing the worst had happened.
‘Darling, I’m so sorry,’ he murmured against her hair.
‘No, no, it’s not that,’ she said, her voice muffled against him. She pulled back a little to say, ‘He’s all right. Well, he isn’t – what I mean is, he’s still alive.’
There was puzzlement in Robbie’s eyes and she knew exactly what he must be thinking: then why aren’t you with him?
‘I’ve come for your mother,’ Fleur was babbling in her anxiety. ‘He’s asking for her.’
‘Asking for my mother?’ Robbie was startled.
‘Yes – yes. She will come, won’t she? Is she here?’
‘Oh yes, she’s here, but as for coming to the hospital—’
Fleur’s eyes widened. ‘She won’t refuse to come, will she? Oh, she can’t. She must come. It might help him. It will help him. I know it will.’
‘It’s not that, Fleur. But she . . . she’s not well herself. Come in and see for yourself. She’s just sat by the fire, not moving. She’s been like that ever since yesterday.’
He drew her into the front room and closed the door. They did not move further into the house, but stood just inside the door whilst Robbie whispered, ‘We had a long talk the night before last. She told me everything. All about what your dad told you.’
Wish Me Luck Page 35