by Anne Brear
“Speaking of birthdays, after Bettina’s it is your big celebration. Twenty One.” He sucked on his pipe thoughtfully. “How the years have flown.”
“Are you glad you had me, Father?”
“Of course!”
“Never regretted not having a son?”
“Not really.” He waved his pipe in the air. “I suppose if I’m honest I’d have liked someone to leave the businesses to, but you girls will provide me with grandsons, I’m sure. I may have more of those than I need.” He laughed at his own joke.
“So you never lamented having a girl as your first child?” she persisted.
“Why should I? You’ve grown into a beautiful, intelligent young woman, Aurora. I couldn’t be more proud of you.”
She smiled, but felt that more could have been added to that last sentence. Or was she imagining it? She was very confused about so many things, she didn’t know what to think or feel anymore. One thing was for certain though, he’d not be proud of her once he heard her news. She sighed deeply, wishing with all her heart she could go back in time and change things.
Later, Aurora spent an hour with her mother and sisters listening to their shopping stories and of who they met while in Leeds. Watching Bettina and Harriet giggle and fuss over new gloves and the latest fashions, she wondered if she’d ever been that childish at their age. They were acting like ten year old girls while she felt old, so very old.
Straight after their evening meal, Winnie, exhausted, went to bed. Their father took himself off to his study to read while the girls sorted out invitation replies to Bettina’s birthday garden party. Taking advantage of the mild summer evening, Aurora slipped out of the house and strolled through the gardens. She breathed in the fragrances of the flowers, which were heavy on the still balmy air.
She was no closer on deciding what to do. Every time she considered her situation and tried to think of a solution her head pounded as though a madman was using her brains as a drum. She’d received no communication from Reid, not that she expected to with Julia guarding the post. He didn’t know of the torture she endured, but somehow she wished he’d instinctively know she needed him and come charging to her rescue. Why hadn’t he come home to the Hall? What kept him in London all this time? Didn’t he need her as much as she needed him? Wasn’t he curious as to why he hadn’t received any letters from her? Or had his mother told him something to discourage him?
Through the trees came the sound of music and raucous laughter. It came as no surprise to her to find herself walking across the lawns separating the two properties. She wanted to wish Tom a happy birthday.
Before she reached the side drive of Sinclair Hall, another burst of laughter reached her. Aurora hesitated on hearing men chanting, urging someone to do something. She slipped down the side of the house to peek through one of the drawing room windows. Inside, a group of young men were lounging around, drinking, eating from a buffet. They all looked so full of energy and fun. A grin lifted her lips as she spotted Tom. He jumped up on another fellow’s back and was riding him like a horse to the joyous shouts of the others.
“Oh, I say.”
Aurora whipped around guiltily to stare at James Sinclair. “James!”
“Aurora!” He slapped his thigh and laughed. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought to come to wish Tom many happy returns of the day, but seeing his friends, and the party well underway, I’d best leave it.”
“You do right, Aurrie.” James made a comical expression. “It’s not very suitable for a lady’s company in there, I’m sorry to say.”
Just then, there came a high pitched stream of laughter that could only belong to a female. Aurora raised her eyebrows at the youngest Sinclair. “No ladies, you say?”
James went beetroot red. “Well…” He pulled at his collar. “Those gels aren’t ladies…”
Aurora blushed too, as she caught his meaning. “Oh, I see.”
“Tom planned them as er…entertainment.” He cleared his throat growing even redder.
Embarrassed, Aurora stepped away from the window and out onto the drive. “I’ll get along home then.”
“I can call for Tom to come out and see you, if you wish?”
“No, please.” She held her hand up to stop him. “I’ll speak to him tomorrow.”
“Hah! He’ll not be awake until the evening I should imagine, not after tonight. And he’ll have a sore head, knowing Tom. Reid has no chance to rein him.”
“Reid?” She gasped, her hand going to her chest as her heart thumped. “Reid is here?”
“We all came up together this afternoon.” James stared at her with a frown. “Perhaps we should have called on you…”
Aurora tried to pull herself together. Poor James must wonder what was wrong with her. “I-I am sure you’ve been busy with guests arriving.”
“We have indeed, but we managed to have a brief luncheon together with just us brothers.” A pleasing softness came into his hazel eyes. “We’ve not been together for some time, well not since Tom was sent up here and Reid has been in Kent.”
“I see.” The brightness of the day faded. Reid in Kent, where Miss FitzGibbon lived.
“And Reid was bursting to tell us his news.”
“News?”
“Why yes. He’s getting married apparently. He told us he’s planning on being married by the end of the year. Isn’t that marvelous?”
“Absolutely.” Her wooden tone was lost on him as he continued.
“It took us all by surprise, though Mother will be delighted. She’s wanted this for a good while.”
“Did-did Reid say who the lucky lady was?”
James scowled and peered down at his shiny boots. “He refused to mention her name. He was very happy and wanted to tease us by not revealing her name. He did say we knew her, but he wasn’t saying more until he’d proposed. We tried everything we could to find out who it was.”
“I ... I believe it could be ... Miss FitzGibbon?”
James’s eyes widened. “I say, you could be right in that, Aurrie. We said her name, but Reid wouldn’t acknowledge or deny it. But Miss FitzGibbon has been a regular visitor to our home in Kensington and Reid to her home while in Kent.”
“She must be the one then. I’d best go now ...” Aurora stumbled backwards, away from James, away from the happy noise coming from the house, away from the source of pain that was lancing her heart like a doctor lanced a boil.
“Jolly good. I’ll tell Tom you called, Aurrie.” James waved and headed along the drive as it curved behind the back of the house.
Aurora glanced through another window and saw Reid enter a room, a brash young woman came up to him and kissed him on the mouth, her red-painted nails clawed at his waistcoat buttons as she wrapped one leg around his. The woman reached for a wine glass, sipped from it and then placed it to Reid’s lips. She licked his neck. Laughing, they left the room arm in arm.
Gagging, Aurora turned and fled across the lawn not stopping until she reached the dividing gate. Here she paused for a second to stifle a sob and unlatch the gate, before she raced off again to the small wood beyond the stables. She collapsed to the ground, crying so hard she thought she would die from the gaping hole inside her. Her eyes began to swell and her nose streamed as though she had a bad cold, but she couldn’t stem the tears fast enough. They flowed, seemingly leaked out of her every pore until she feared she’d drown in them. She couldn’t breathe or think and when an inhuman wail escaped her, she clapped her hands over her mouth in deadening despair that she was losing her mind.
Reid.
Why had he gone with that woman? Despite what she saw, she wanted Reid more at this moment than at any other time. She needed him to hold her, to tell her it would be all right. However, even in her misery she understood Reid would never be hers. Julia had won. Aurora could never tell him of the child, of her parentage. Their relationship was over, as was her life as she knew it.
The night closed in ar
ound her, the darkness like a blanket that kept her safe before the crying finally eased, leaving her exhausted and dizzy, but that was better than the sobbing which took all her breath. She rested her head against a tree and stared up without really seeing the leafy silvery canopy above. Only when the numbness in her legs became unbearable, did she come back to the distressing present.
Feeling as old as time, she staggered to her feet, wincing as the blood circulated down to her toes again. An owl hooted and somewhere in the distance a fox barked, its eerie sound carrying in the quiet.
Aurora didn’t remember entering the house, nor climbing the staircase. Somehow she had done it and now, standing in the middle of her bedroom, she felt a stranger amongst her own things. She didn’t belong here. Not now. Everything was different. The life course she believed was hers, being a member of her family, marriage to Reid, was a sham. But then, where did she belong?
A lamp had been lit on the dresser and in the dim golden light she looked around the room and felt nothing. She was dead inside. Dead to her belongings, this room, this house and the people in it. Dead to the whole world in fact.
She drew out a piece of paper from her drawer and began to write.
Dear Mother and Father,
This letter will come as a shock to you, and I’m sorry that I am to cause you pain but I feel this is something I must do.
I am leaving to find my real mother, Sophia Barton. It does not matter how I know about her but now that I do, I believe I should seek her out.
How long this will take me, I do not know, but I beg you not to try and find me. I will send word of my progress. To cover my absence, perhaps you could tell our friends that I have gone on holiday to Europe or something to that effect. I’ll leave that for you to decide.
I hold you both and my sisters in great affection.
After adding her name, she folded the letter into an envelope and propped it on her pillow.
Slowly, methodically, she began to pack.
Chapter Seven
The deafening noise of the trains competed with the whistles and calls from the stationmaster. Smoke and steam hissed upwards towards the large steel dome of York’s train station. People jostled Aurora; all eager to get where they were going, unlike her. She side-stepped an overflowing luggage cart and then did it again to avoid colliding with a small child who’d let go of his mother’s hand. She heard the elegant woman chastising him as she grabbed is hand again.
Leaving the station, Aurora went out onto the busy street. Although she’d been to large cities before, mainly Leeds and Manchester and on one occasion to London, she wasn’t used to the constant throb of noise that assaulted her from every direction. When shopping with her mother in Leeds she went from their carriage straight into the subdued tasteful surroundings of the milliner’s shop, the dressmaker’s shop, and the haberdashery before spending a peaceful half hour in a dainty tearoom her mother frequented each week. A visit to the tomb-like silence of the library usually completed the day and then they’d casually drive home. All this was very different to her experience on a cramped morning train and now the hectic pace of midday York traffic, which whizzed past her at alarming speeds.
A yell from a driver high up on a carriage seat made her jump and step back onto the pavement. Crossing the street seemed a hazardous idea. How did people do it? In fact, how did anyone live in a city permanently? The snort from one of the horse pairs pulling a large wagon full of kegs from a brewery gave her a jolt. She read the brewery name emblazoned on the side of the wagon and speculated whether it would be going to The Yellow Moon. She had no idea where the public house Sophia worked at was situated in the sprawl of York. She only had a basic address. Walmgate.
Hitching her suitcase more comfortably in her hand, she headed down the road away from the station. She’d have to ask directions from someone. What looked to be shops loomed further ahead, but from around the corner of the next street stepped a policeman.
“Excuse me.” Aurora stopped him.
“Yes, Miss?” The policeman, tall with kind eyes gave her a smile.
“I need directions to Walmgate, please.”
His face altered and he frowned. “Nay, Miss. Walmgate, you say?”
“That’s correct, yes.”
“You’ll not be wanting to go there, Miss. It’s a right old…er…that is to say it’s not fit for decent ladies, such as yourself, to be in those parts.” He swallowed audibly.
“But I must. There is someone I need to see.”
He studied her for a moment and saw the determination in her eyes. “Very well then.” He gave her the directions, but as she went to leave him he spoke again. “You’d do well to be away from there before nightfall, Miss. It’s not safe.”
“Thank you. I will.” She nodded and hurried away before she forgot his instructions on where she needed to go. Her suitcase grew heavier as she traversed the streets, which became narrower and meaner in appearance with each turn of a corner. She didn’t want to dwell on the policeman’s comment of the area. She wasn’t stupid, she knew there were poor people and dangerous parts of cities, but she’d never ventured into one of those areas until now. And she hoped she had the nerve to withstand it.
Her feet aching, and no doubt blisters grew on her heels with every step, Aurora walked along Hope Street, a dirty, soot-covered tenement, where houses stretched in a never-ending row, she doubted the wisdom of her plan to see Sophia. Escaping into the early dawn, leaving the safety of her home and family, she’d not focused on the end result. All she knew was that something had to be done. She had to take some action in sorting out the mess that her life had become. Begging a lift off a dairy farmer driving his cart to Leeds as the night sky turned creamy orange had been easy. So had catching the six o’clock morning train to York. But now as she neared the bleak and miserable exterior of The Yellow Moon, the misgivings of this idea swarmed her head.
The public house sat in the middle of Hope Street, but also on a corner of a narrow alley that even in the middle of the day was dark and menacing. Aurora glanced up at the building and her spirits sank even further. The decayed and peeling advertising on the walls matched the neglected look of the spotted dingy green paint of the doors and window frames. Thick dark glass fitted in the middle of each of the two front doors hid the interior from her gaze, as did the drawn blinds on the windows. No sound came from within.
Now she was here she didn’t know what to do. Did one just knock on the door of a public house?
Turning from the doors, she took in the street. Terraced housing, their doors leading straight onto the pavement, dominated the view up and down. The overcast sky seemed to sit immediately on the dull slate roofs as though trying to press the houses into the earth. A brown, matted dog relieved itself against a wall across the street and Aurora jumped when a shriek pierced the air from an upstairs window to the right of her. One by one the noises of the street entered her head, filling her ears. A door banged, a baby cried, a man yelled. There came the sound of water being thrown from a bucket, the sliding of a window opening or closing, she didn’t know which. Bottles rattled, a rug was thumped against a wall, a child shrieked.
She noticed the people of the street for the first time. Two slatternly women stood on their doorsteps chatting. A man lounged against a pole smoking a pipe. Another woman swept her steps while another leaned out of a window and blasted the air with foul language directed at one of the boys playing marbles in the gutter. Barefoot, ragged children played in groups, one of boys and the other of girls. The soft thwack of a skipping rope kept a perfect rhythm to the little girls chanting as they ran in and out of the twirling rope.
Aurora blinked and wiped her eyes with one hand. She felt as though she was coming out of a dream, no, a nightmare. This foreign world scared her. What was she doing here? Why had she come? She must have been out of her wits.
A big woman, with breasts that hung down and sat on her wide waist, walked over to her. “Eh, lass, you lookin�
�� for summat?”
“I…I…” Aurora stared at the stained apron stretching around the woman’s middle. Her stomach churned.
“You lost p’haps?” Her kindly face smiled to reveal missing front teeth.
Light-headed, Aurora focused on the woman’s gaping mouth, but it was no use. A gradual blackness came over her and she gladly accepted it.
Sophia Barton left her lodgings in the filthy squalor that was Edinburgh Yard. After picking her way through a stinky, mucky cut leading to a bigger and dirtier alley, she then turned right and walked up Hope Street. She’d just had a blazing row with her latest man, Con, and now she had to go to work and put up with more leering drunken men until the bar closed late tonight. She was getting too old for this lark. How she hated her life!
She’d thrown Con out, sick of his whining and drunken antics, sick of his lazy habits and excuses when he didn’t get up for work. She didn’t have to put up with any of it. She’d been her own woman for over twenty years, she didn’t need him or anyone, and she’d told him so when she’d kicked his skinny arse down the steps and thrown the bits of clothes he owned down after him.
At the front of the pub she noticed a noisy gathering, and her shoulders sagged. Today, she didn’t want to deal with anyone else’s problems. She didn’t want to patch up a battered woman, or listen to some old drunk’s tales of younger days. For once, she simply wanted to forget she lived in this squalor, do her work and then return to the flea-infested hovel that was her home and fall into a dreamless sleep. Couldn’t she have that today? Was it so much to ask for?
Women stood about chatting nineteen to the dozen, and that gave their kids a perfect opportunity to misbehave and act like hooligans. The pub wasn’t even open yet so it couldn’t be a brawl surely?
What the hell was going on?
Pushing her way through the women, earning herself an elbow jab from one nasty piece for her trouble, Sophia made it to the centre of the action and stopped dead. Flo O’Neil was squatting on the ground, holding a slender stranger in her pudgy arms.