Chapter Twenty-Two
There’ll doubtless be questions, his father had said, and you should be the one to answer them. Sonny looked at his almost grown-up children and tried to anticipate those questions. Rosanna seemed the most concerned – which was understandable after the nasty things Belle had said to her. He had already had words with his sister over that.
Though his wife had travelled with him he was facing the children alone. Josie had thought it best – Nick might want to enquire about his real mother and Josie’s presence could make that uncomfortable for all of them. Sonny began with, ‘I know your grandfather’s explained the fundamentals… but if there’s anything you don’t understand – however intimate a question it might be – I’m here to answer you. Don’t think you’ll hurt me by asking.’
It was a few moments before either of them responded. Then it was Rosanna who whispered, ‘I’d like to know a little bit about… your brother.’
Sonny detected the hesitation. ‘Your real father.’ He smiled at her and reached for her hand, squeezing it. ‘I’ve told you, don’t be afraid of hurting my feelings, yours are the ones that’re important.’
She swapped chairs to sit close beside him on the sofa. ‘I don’t feel any different about you – you’re still my father… I’d just like to know what he was like.’
Sonny told her then and from the way he spoke she knew that he had loved his brother very much. His expression was fond as he relived some of the adventures he and Dickie had had as children, how good-looking his brother had been. Before today, Sonny had spoken little of the fire in which the other had died – apart from not wanting to think about those good looks burnt beyond recognition, he had not cared to remind his children of the horror. But he did so now. ‘You know he was the one who saved you when the old house burnt down?’ They both nodded.
‘But I can’t really remember him,’ said Rosanna. ‘I just recall a man carrying me and Nick down the stairs, and the flames and smoke.’
‘No, well, you were only three… When he’d rescued you,’ went on Sonny, ‘Dickie ran back into the house to try and save your mother – sorry, I mean Nick’s mother, Peggy. He never came out…’
‘How did the fire start?’ asked Nick.
Trust Nick to ask a technical question, thought Sonny, but was rather glad of his son’s ability to be cool-headed. All this had affected him very little. ‘No one is certain. There was an explosion and the roof fell in.’
Nick asked how the rest of the family managed to escape.
‘Oh, they weren’t inside,’ replied his father. ‘Your grandparents had taken Great-grandma to the solicitor’s, I was out looking for Dickie and the maids had been given the afternoon off…’ He paused as if something had just struck him, then went on, ‘When Dickie and I got there everyone was out in the street. The house was locked up, we had to break in.’ Again a pause for reflection. He had never understood why all the doors had been locked and even less so why Peggy had given the staff the afternoon off; she had never been that charitable.
Rosanna tried to picture the man who had saved her, but failed. ‘I remember seeing my mother – well, I know she wasn’t my mother now… but I seem to remember a man talking to her. I can’t see his face, though.’
Sonny knew his daughter’s memory was fooling her. He himself could clearly remember Dickie charging from the house with the two children, shouting, ‘Peggy’s still in there! She’s unconscious!’ and barging back in before anyone could stop him. It was all so vivid. He patted Rosanna. ‘You were only little, you can’t be expected to remember. I’m glad you can’t in a way. It was terrible…’ Nick then asked about his mother. What could his father say? That she was a harlot and a scold and a poor mother? ‘She was very pretty,’ he told Nick. ‘I loved her very much once… but things went sour.’ At Nick’s cue he told of how he had been set to marry Peggy, then had found she was pregnant with his brother’s child. Loving her as he did he had married her anyway, but things had not worked out. ‘She wanted a life I couldn’t give her, Nick. I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but neither would I want you to hold her in your memory as an angel. Josie’s been much more of a mother to both of you than Peggy ever was.’
Both children concurred heartily. ‘I remember lots of things about Mother from when I was little.’ Rosanna was referring to Josie now. ‘In fact even though she wasn’t my mother then I regarded her as such. The only thing I really remember about my real mother – I mean Nick’s mother,’ she laughed almost gaily. ‘Oh, it’s so confusing! I’ll bet no one else could refer to three different women as Mother! I’ll call her Peggy, then you’ll know who I’m talking about… The only thing I definitely recall is that horrible stuff she used to dose us with – d’you remember it, Nick?’
‘Do I? It was disgusting. I don’t know what it was for but by Heaven I’ll always remember the taste.’
Sonny knew what it had been for – to put them to sleep while their mother went off to meet her men-friends. Again something niggled at his mind… the doors had been locked, the maids off-duty, only Peggy and the children in the house – there was something.
‘I remember her smelling nice,’ mused Nick. ‘It annoys me that I can’t picture her face – even though I was always fonder of Josie. I only recall a man carrying us downstairs that day.’ He wrinkled his brow. ‘I seem to think there was somebody else there, too, but I can’t say if it was a man or a woman.’ Rosanna was of this impression, too.
‘No, there was only Dickie and my wife,’ said his father, and envisioning those two distorted shells that had once been human beings steered the conversation to other matters. ‘I can’t tell you anything about your natural mother, Rosie. I’m sorry, but I didn’t know her.’
‘That’s all right. I’m not really interested.’ But Rosanna did wonder if she looked like her real mother at all.
‘Anyway,’ Sonny answered the unspoken query, ‘you’re more of a Feeney in looks.’ At her smile he rubbed his knees and asked, ‘Well… is there anything else you need to know?’
Rosie fell against him in her impulsive fashion. ‘Only that you love us.’
Bright of eye, he laughed and squeezed her tightly, cementing his paternity, saying that he loved them both very much indeed. Much unburdened, Sonny sought out his wife who had been waiting alone in the drawing room and told her of the children’s reactions. But from time to time she couldn’t help noticing that his mind would stray and his face would become puzzled. Finally, she commented on this.
‘There’s just something…’ he murmured confusedly. ‘Don’t ask me what… just something that isn’t quite right. God knows I’ve relived that fire a thousand times in my mind, but still…’ He turned his baffled face to hers. ‘They both seemed to think that there was another person in the house when Dickie rescued them.’
‘They were only little…’
‘True, and they don’t remember much… but Josie, why would they both say the same thing?’
‘Well, one of them probably heard the other saying it and they’ve thought about it so much that it’s become real. Just because they haven’t discussed the fire with us doesn’t mean they haven’t talked to each other about it.’
‘But even taking that to be true, aren’t there things that you can summon up from babyhood – silly, insignificant memories?’
‘I can recall getting my head stuck in the banisters when I was two but I don’t see what that’s got to do with it.’
‘We both know Peggy had other men.’
Her face rebuked him for introducing Peggy’s name and stirring up bad memories, but he wasn’t really paying attention. ‘I’ve been going over and over all the things that seemed out of place… the house being locked up, the maids being given the afternoon off… and I can only come up with one reason why she’d do that.’ His grey eyes lost their vagueness. ‘She had a man in there.’
Josie gasped at this theory. ‘No, there would’ve been another body.’
/> ‘Not necessarily. He could’ve escaped through a back window before the fire took hold or…’ Excitement was beginning to flutter in his breast. ‘I daren’t say it, Jos.’
‘Oh, John, dear,’ she said worriedly. ‘Don’t raise your hopes on a flimsy idea like this. Why, after all this time…’
‘But it’s possible, Jos!’ He hitched his body round, speaking animatedly now. ‘The body found with Peggy’s could’ve belonged to the other man! Dickie could’ve got out some way! He was going to escape to America anyway, what better way than to have people think you’re dead?’
She begged him not to become carried away on the strength of two small children’s memories, knowing how devastated he would be to find it had all been fancy. ‘And you’ve no way of proving it one way or the other.’
‘Even so, isn’t it much better to think that’s what could’ve happened? That Dickie is alive somewhere?’
‘John, love, your brother’s dead. That solicitor…’
He cut her off with a yell. ‘Yes! The solicitor – I might get something out of him!’ He sprang up.
‘What – now?’
‘What’s the point in waiting? Oh, Christ! What was his name?’ He racked his brain. ‘Can you remember?’ She shook her head. ‘Never mind, Dad’ll know… oh, no, I can’t ask him, can I?’ He swore and stumped about in frustration. At his wife’s suggestion that there might be something in the bureau at home he beckoned to her. ‘Right, let’s go!’
She tried to dissuade him. ‘Your mam and dad’ll think it funny us rushing off like this, John.’
He saw that she was right, but could barely contain his eagerness, feeling sure he had hit on something vital.
‘Aye… we’ll have to stay for a bit longer – but directly we’re home I’m gonna rip that bureau apart!’
* * *
Sonny found a letter bearing the name of his brother’s solicitor and wasted no time in journeying back to York. But once seated in the man’s office he didn’t know how to make his claim without appearing a fool. However, he was given a moment’s leeway by the solicitor enquiring if he would care for coffee, and a brief discussion on the weather. Once the smalltalk was used up he was forced to come to the point.
‘Mr Sutcliffe, I won’t prolong this by hedging; I have reason to believe my brother is still alive.’
There was the slightest alteration in Sutcliffe’s features. He took a sip of his coffee. ‘Mr Feeney, I take no pleasure in assuring you that you are totally misled. May one ask why you should suddenly believe after – what is it, fourteen years? – that your brother did not die in that fire?’
Faced with such surety, Sonny was hesitant in putting forward his theory, but nevertheless that was what he was here to do. He told Sutcliffe about his late wife’s adultery. ‘So, you see it’s quite feasible that there was another person in the house that day – the bodies were too charred to be identifiable.’ He spread his arms in a helpless gesture.
‘Mr Feeney,’ Sutcliffe toyed with the handle of his cup. ‘I don’t think you fully realise that by telling me this you are suggesting that I know something which you do not – in effect, that your brother has made me party to deception. Were that true then I should be guilty of unethical behaviour. I trust you’re not accusing…’
‘Oh, no, no!’ Sonny was quick to put matters right. ‘I just sort of hoped that you might know something – I mean, Dickie could have fooled you too, couldn’t he?’
‘But if he’d fooled me then how could I know something? Forgive me, but I think that your eagerness to believe your brother is alive has robbed you of your reasoning power. Your theory has no foundation, it is based merely on emotion.’
Sonny’s spirits flagged. To the solicitor he seemed to wither. ‘My wife was right. She said I was raising false hopes… I’m sorry to have given the impression that I was holding your ethics in question, Mr Sutcliffe – that never entered my mind. As you say, I wanted so desperately to hear that he was still alive that I’d almost convinced myself…’
Sutcliffe felt very sorry for the man who was obviously stricken. ‘You must have been very close, Mr Feeney? I say that not only because of the impression you have given me today, but because – if I recall correctly – your brother left the bulk of his estate to you.’
Sonny gave a dull nod and sighed. ‘Ah, dear… you’d think fourteen years would have made the memory less painful, wouldn’t you? I feel such a fool for coming here. It was idiotic, thinking he could have got out of that inferno. I suppose it’s just that I needed something to cling onto, so that I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life remembering my brother as a piece of charred debris. Not being able to identify him… well, I just couldn’t truly believe he was dead. It could have been another man in that fire or it could have been Dickie. I wish to hell I just knew one way or another. I’d forgive any deception just to know he was still alive.’
‘Mr Feeney,’ Sutcliffe’s voice was sympathetic. ‘I wish I could help, but all I can do is to repeat what I’ve already said. Your brother made a will, you were a beneficiary. Here,’ he got up to rummage in a filing cabinet and after a while laid a document before Sonny – it was the will. ‘That contains all the evidence you are seeking.’ Seeing the disappointment that clouded Sonny’s eyes the solicitor excused himself diplomatically into an outer office until the man felt more composed.
Sonny made no move to go. Josie had been right. It had been stupid to try and resurrect Dickie after fourteen years. All he had resurrected was the heartache. But he had felt so sure. He fingered the will apathetically, flicking a corner of it as his weary eyes read the words that the solicitor had recited fourteen years ago. ‘I, Richard William Feeney, being of sound mind and body, do hereby declare that this is my last will and testament, made this twentieth day of September, eighteen hundred and seventy-four. To my dearly loved brother, John Patrick Feeney, I bequeath my house on The Mount and all its contents…’ Even now Sonny could feel the pain as acutely as if it were the day of the first reading.
He lowered the will to the desk and heaved his body from the chair, had almost reached the door… when he froze. There mas something. Lurching back to the desk he snatched up the document, scouring it with desperate eyes. Twentieth of September… no, nothing telling there, Dickie hadn’t died until November… ‘My house on The Mount and all its contents. To my dear father… Sonny’s eyes shot back to the previous line – my house on The Mount! ‘You bastard!’ came the involuntary shout. Then Sonny bit his lip hard and made a sound that was a mixture of grief and laughter. Dickie… you little old bastard! He spun round to see if anyone had heard his shout. The solicitor had vanished. Wasting no further time Sonny dashed from the building.
Sutcliffe heard the slam and wandered back into his office. The will was still on the desk… but he knew it had had the intended effect – had heard the man’s cry. With a quirk of his lips he watched from his window as Sonny clambered into a carriage and drove away, hoping that his sentimental gesture would have no backlash.
* * *
Sonny was framed in the doorway, his face as red as his hair. ‘He’s alive, Jos!’ He strode forward and lifted her off her feet.
Josie tried to calm him. ‘Just sit down and tell me what you’ve found!’
He gripped her arms, face throbbing with repressed excitement. ‘Oh, I can’t!’ He marched up and down, clasping his hands. She begged him to simmer down and he brought his emotions under tight enough rein to stutter his findings. ‘The date on the will, twentieth September… it said, “To my beloved brother”…’ his voice tremored, ‘“I leave my house on The Mount”… Josie, he didn’t have that house in September!’
‘But…’ She hoisted her hands in confusion. ‘In September Dickie still had his… house of a thousand delights!’
‘The brothel?’
‘Yes!’ He stormed forward and clasped her again. ‘Don’t you see? He made that will after he died!’
‘Oh, John…’ Her f
ace was dubious. ‘Don’t go raising…’
‘Josie! I know he’s still alive.’
‘You don’t know anything! And you’re going to be hurt…’
‘Woman!’ he roared at her and imprisoned her on a chair while he expanded his notion. ‘Just listen! I know that Dickie only purchased that house on The Mount a few weeks before he died. Christ, what am I saying – he’s not dead! On the way home, the day the house burnt down, we talked about a lot of things – and he told me himself that he’d sold the brothel and bought a new place.’ His face became more intent as he squatted before his wife’s chair, speaking directly into her face. ‘He could only have written that will after he died.’
‘But why would he do that, John? If he wanted to pretend he was dead that would only have helped to give the game away – and surely the solicitor wouldn’t have gone along with such deception?’
‘Josie, you know what Dickie is – he can twist anybody round his finger. Lord knows why he made the will… but does that matter?’
‘So… if he isn’t dead… what did happen to him?’ His face was triumphant. ‘He’s in America! I told you he was heading there before the fire, he was in some sort of bother again… He went there and then he wrote that bloody will and sent it to his solicitor – that’s why we didn’t get the reading until a few months after his death!’ He exhaled loudly. ‘God, all these years and I never twigged…’ A seriousness came over him and he conveyed his fears to Josie. ‘I want to find him, Jos, but I don’t know how to start… an’ I’m scared what’ll happen if I do. The shock could kill Mam and Dad – if they don’t kill him first… I just want to see for myself that he’s alive.’ He stiffened as though his brother’s ghost had come swaggering in. His wife saw the action and asked, ‘What is it?’
Erin’s Child Page 37