Tangled Threads

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘Poor darling,’ she whispered. She closed her eyes and held Rebecca’s hand to her lips. Against the slim fingers, she promised, ‘I’ll look after your little one. I promise.’

  Another promise made. Another burden to carry. And yet, she thought as she whispered ‘goodbye’ to her cousin, what else can I do?

  She left the bedroom, closing the door softly behind her and stood a moment at the top of the stairs to wipe away the tears that filled her eyes. Then she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and went downstairs.

  Entering the kitchen, she found Win sitting in Mary’s chair, feeding the baby.

  ‘Where’s my mother? She could be doing that.’

  Win’s eyes softened as she looked down at the tiny mite in her arms. ‘I don’t mind.’ Then she cast her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Your mam’s gone upstairs. To the top floor, I reckon. She says she’s going to sleep in the room your Jimmy had.’

  Eveleen nodded but her heart sank. She had a feeling that her mother was slipping into one of her moods.

  ‘Win, could you look after the baby for a day? I’ll have to go to Flawford to see my uncle. He has to know. Besides . . .’ She bit her lip. ‘I don’t know what he wants to do about the funeral.’ It was already late to be setting off to travel to Flawford, but Eveleen could delay no longer.

  ‘Of course I can, mi duck. But what about your mother? Doesn’t she want to look after her?’

  Eveleen shook her head and her mouth tightened. ‘I suspect my mother has taken to her bed for a while.’ She glanced at Win, unwilling to confide all her family secrets, yet the woman had been so kind. So she told part of the truth but not all of it. ‘Years ago she lost a baby and this has brought it all back.’

  Win nodded sympathetically. ‘I’ll look after them both, love. And I’ll see to poor Rebecca too.’ The woman sighed and said sadly, ‘I help ’em into the world and I help ’em go out of it.’

  Touched by her thoughtfulness, Eveleen hugged her.

  ‘There, there,’ Win murmured, patting Eveleen’s back, trying to give her some crumbs of comfort. ‘Off you go. You go and do what you have to. You haven’t got an easy job either, love.’

  Eveleen was lucky. A carter gave her a lift part of the way and soon she was turning into the narrow street in Flawford. Her heart was beating fast as she stepped into the yard. The noise of machinery came from the workshops. That was where he would be.

  As she walked towards the door leading up to the stairs to where her uncle sat at his frame, Andrew Burns was coming down.

  He stopped on the bottom step and stood looking down at her. His face was in shadow, but she could feel the tension in him. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

  Eveleen opened her mouth to say that she must speak to her uncle first, but no sound would come. Sorrow choked her and tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

  He stepped down and came to her, holding out his arms. Sobbing, Eveleen clung to him, burying her face against his shoulder. ‘Did she lose the baby?’ he asked gently.

  Against him Eveleen, still unable to speak, shook her head.

  She felt his whole body tremble as he breathed against her ear. ‘Oh no. Dear Father in Heaven, no!’

  Eveleen raised her tear-stained face and drew herself gently out of his arms. ‘Will you – will you go and fetch my uncle down, please?’

  The young man nodded as if now he too were unable to speak. He turned and dragged himself back up the stairs.

  Eveleen leant against the whitewashed wall and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her uncle was standing at the turn in the stairs looking down on her. He came slowly down to her, his gaze fastened on her face as if he was trying to read there what the dreadful news was before she even spoke.

  As she stood before him, Eveleen thought these were the hardest words she had ever had to say in her life, harder even than breaking the news to her mother about her father’s death. Then there had been other people with her. Jimmy had been there and their neighbours.

  Now, Eveleen faced her forbidding uncle alone.

  ‘Uncle Harry. I’m so sorry. Rebecca, she – she’s gone.’

  Harry frowned and asked harshly, ‘Gone? What do you mean gone? Run away?’

  ‘No, no.’ She was handling this very badly. Giving him false hope when there was none. Then the words came out in a rush. ‘No, she had the baby. A girl, but – but she had such a bad time. There was nothing the doctor could do. She – she died, Uncle Harry. This morning. Rebecca died this morning.’

  The man’s big frame was immobile and his expression did not alter, except perhaps that the frown deepened. He was motionless for several minutes before he said steadily, ‘Thank you for telling me, Eveleen.’

  Then, to Eveleen’s amazement, he turned and began to climb back up the stairs to his work.

  She caught hold of his arm. ‘Uncle Harry. What am I to do? What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Me?’ His voice was hard, as unforgiving as ever, and his words chilled her. ‘Why should it be anything to do with me?’

  ‘She’s your daughter. I thought—’

  ‘Then you thought wrong.’

  He pulled free of her grasp and clumped up the stairs. Eveleen stared after him unable to believe what she had heard. Then she blurted out, ‘She was calling for you. The last words I heard her say were, “I want my father”.’

  He paused. He stood still for a long moment but he did not look round. Then slowly he continued his way up the stairs.

  Forty-Four

  Eveleen stumbled her way to her grandmother’s cottage, opened the door and went in without waiting for an invitation.

  Bridget was sitting in her usual chair before the fire. She glanced up at the sound and, unlike her son, read the dreadful news in Eveleen’s face before she spoke. ‘So one of ’em’s gone then? Which? Or is it both?’

  Eveleen sank down into the chair opposite and stared at her grandmother. ‘He – he doesn’t seem to care,’ she said, still in shock at her uncle’s response.

  The old woman’s face worked before she said, ‘He cares, but he can’t show it. He hides behind this unforgiving front. But underneath . . .’

  Eveleen, regaining some of her senses though her uncle’s attitude had left her reeling, said, ‘You could have fooled me.’

  ‘So,’ Bridget was looking at her granddaughter. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

  Eveleen related the dreadful events of the past day and night, ending with, ‘The baby’s strong and healthy. We’re going to baptize her Bridget.’

  The old lady smiled wistfully. ‘Another little Bridie,’ she murmured. She lapsed once more into a perfect Irish brogue. ‘Ah me dada would have been that proud, so he would.’

  ‘Is that what they called you, Gran?’

  Bridget nodded. ‘Me dada always called me Bridie.’ She smiled gently as she remembered but her eyes were sad and watered as she gazed into the flickering flames in the grate. ‘Michael O’Hallaran,’ she murmured, slipping into the Irish brogue once more, the speech of her childhood. ‘The foinest Irishman that ever drew breath, so he was.’ There was silence between them before she murmured, ‘We should never have left Ireland.’

  ‘Why did you?’ Eveleen prompted gently, though she knew something of the story already.

  Bridget sighed deeply. ‘The potato failure in ’forty-five. Not one year, but four years in a row. A lot of families left then. Some went to America. We came to England. I was about nine. To London first and then, because my father got work as a hosier, we moved to this area. Later, of course, I married Alfred and I’ve been here ever since.’

  ‘Your husband must have been a very clever man to have built all this from nothing.’ Eveleen waved her hand briefly to encompass the cottages, the yard and the workshops.

  ‘I don’t know about “clever”. He worked hard, I know that. All the hours God sent, as they say.’

  There was another long silence before Eveleen, rolling the nam
e around in her mind, then spoke it aloud. ‘Bridie. I like it. That’s what we’ll call Rebecca’s little one. Bridie.’

  As she was leaving, with still nothing resolved about Rebecca’s funeral, Eveleen found Andrew waiting for her by the gate.

  ‘Did she suffer?’ he asked bluntly.

  Eveleen could not meet his eyes and her hesitation told him the answer. He groaned and said bitterly, ‘Tell that brother of yours if I ever set eyes on him again I’ll kill him.’

  Eveleen pulled her shawl closely around her shoulders. ‘You’ll have to stand in line then, because if I ever catch up with him, I’ll kill him an’ all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Of course, she reminded herself. Andrew didn’t know. None of them here knew about Jimmy. The last time she had visited Flawford, it had been to ask for her uncle’s permission for them to be married.

  Gently she said, ‘He ran away. The day I was here last time, when I got back, he’d gone.’

  ‘You – you mean, he never married her?’

  Eveleen shook her head.

  Andrew punched his fist into the palm of his hand. ‘I wish I’d known. I wish you’d told me, Eveleen. I’d have married her, if she’d’ve had me. I’d have given her baby my name.’

  Eveleen reached out and touched his arm. The lump that seemed to have been constantly in her throat since the previous day grew. This man’s love for the dead girl overwhelmed her. After her own disastrous romance, she had never thought that such an unselfish love existed in any young man.

  But before her stood a young man who would have done anything for the girl he loved.

  ‘I’m sorry, Andrew,’ she said.

  They stood together in silence until he said, ‘What’s – what’s going to happen to her? Are you bringing her back here?’

  Eveleen shrugged helplessly and told him of her uncle’s attitude. ‘I don’t understand him. He won’t even tell me what he wants me to do.’

  ‘Bring her back here,’ Andrew said firmly. ‘Have a service in the chapel for her’ – he nodded across the road – ‘and have her buried in the cemetery. I’ll look after her grave.’

  ‘Are you sure? Won’t my uncle . . . ?’

  ‘Never mind about him. Do it, Eveleen. It’s what Rebecca would have wanted.’

  Eveleen nodded. ‘She was calling for him. For her father. Her last words were of him.’

  ‘Did she – did she ever ask about me?’ The young man’s decisiveness deserted him.

  ‘Of course,’ Eveleen answered quickly. Too quickly. ‘When I got back last time, she wanted to know how you were.’

  Andrew smiled sadly. ‘Good try, Eveleen. But you don’t fool me. But thanks for the lie.’

  He turned away before she should see the tears that brimmed in his eyes begin to fall.

  ‘What on earth are you spending all our savings on her funeral for?’ Aroused from her lethargy, Mary now screamed at Eveleen. ‘We’ll never get home at this rate if you go squandering every penny we’ve earned.’

  ‘Just remember who it was who earned us that little bit extra that we could put away,’ Eveleen shot back. Mother and daughter glared at each other, then Mary’s glance fell away.

  ‘It should be Harry paying for it all, not us,’ she muttered.

  ‘I’d agree with you there, Mam, but since Uncle Harry wants nothing more to do with his daughter, not even her funeral, I don’t have much choice.’

  ‘Why are you taking her all the way back to Flawford? You don’t need to do that.’

  ‘Maybe not.’ Eveleen was trying very hard to hold on to her patience. ‘But Andrew says it’s what Rebecca would have wanted. It’s the least we can do.’

  Mary shot another resentful glance at her daughter, but said no more. It was not the least they could do and they both knew it. But in their hearts both women knew it was what should be done.

  ‘Oh have it your way then,’ Mary muttered, and climbed the stairs to the top-floor room where she slammed the door as if she meant never to open it again.

  Two black horses, groomed to shine in the pale sunlight, pulled the enclosed box-like hearse in which the coffin rested. High on the driving seat a man in a black coat and silk top hat held the reins and the long whip in black gloved hands. The sad little funeral party set off from the back street in the city and into the country, Eveleen driving the pony and trap she had hired behind the hearse.

  ‘I ’spect we’ll be the only ones there,’ Mary grumbled. ‘That lot’ – she referred with scathing bitterness to the villagers of Flawford – ‘won’t come to a sinner’s funeral.’

  Mary had taken a lot of persuading to come, but Eveleen had managed it. Now she sat in the trap clutching Rebecca’s tiny baby, who was warmly wrapped in a lace shawl that Win had given them.

  ‘Andrew will be there.’ Of that, Eveleen was confident. ‘And what about Gran? Won’t she come?’

  Mary sniffed. ‘Shouldn’t think so. Not if Harry’s not going. She wouldn’t dare. She’s all talk and no do, is your grandmother.’

  ‘She might surprise you,’ Eveleen said, but even she was not hopeful.

  As the ponderous procession reached the village, Eveleen said, ‘The place seems deserted. There’s nobody about.’

  ‘They’re all staying indoors out the way so they don’t have to take their hats off or bow to the coffin.’ Mary’s bitterness went deep, very deep, Eveleen realized sadly.

  But as they turned into Ranters’ Row, Eveleen gasped. The narrow street was full of people, so crowded in fact that the driver had to halt the vehicle to allow the throng to part to let them through.

  Several of the women wore black bonnets and shawls and all of the men wore something black as a mark of respect. Whatever they could unearth among their own belongings, or beg or borrow from neighbours, Eveleen suspected. One or two, perhaps unable to find anything else, wore black armbands on their sleeves.

  As the horses’ hooves clattered on the cobbles the gathering fell silent.

  ‘Nosy beggars,’ Mary muttered as Eveleen helped her down from the trap. ‘Coming to gawp and revel in some poor girl’s downfall.’

  Eveleen glanced about her. There didn’t seem to be much revelry. One or two women held handkerchiefs to their faces and all the men had removed their hats and caps and stood, solemn-faced, with their eyes lowered. To the forefront, stood Gracie Turner, tears running down her cheeks.

  As they stepped through the door of the chapel, even Mary’s eyes widened in surprise. Not another villager could squeeze inside. Only the Singletons’ family pew had been left empty for the chief mourners. As Eveleen, carrying the child now, and her mother moved down the aisle they could see that only one person was sitting there already. Bridget.

  Men, women and even children were squashed into every pew and those who could not find a seat lined the aisle so that the bearers, Andrew among them, had difficulty in carrying the coffin to the rostrum. The door was left open so that the people who were still in the street could hear the service. It seemed that out of the whole village there was only one person missing.

  Harry Singleton was not present at his daughter’s funeral.

  Eveleen was quite unprepared for the warmth, the sympathy and the compassion that enfolded the family. The minister was a young man whom Eveleen had not heard preach before. She was struck at once by his humanity, by the caring and forgiving attitude that was so evident in the way he conducted the funeral. As the service continued she was overwhelmed by his solicitude, and when it came to his address and he spoke with such love and concern for the dead girl that Eveleen broke down and sobbed, burying her face in the shawl wrapped around the motherless baby in her arms.

  The service over, the four young men hoisted the coffin on to their shoulders and walked slowly out of the chapel and down the street. They made no move to slide the coffin back into the hearse. They would carry their sad burden on their shoulders all the way to the cemetery. With one accord the whole of the congregation fell i
nto step behind them. As they passed by the windows of the cottages that looked out on to the street, Eveleen glanced up, straining to see beyond the glass and into the scullery of her uncle’s home.

  Standing well back from the window, hoping not to be seen in the shadows but caught by Eveleen’s sharp eyes, Harry was watching.

  Later, back in Eveleen’s grandmother’s house, Andrew tenderly took the baby from her arms. Holding her, he looked down into the tiny face, searching, Eveleen was sure, for a likeness to the girl he had loved so much.

  ‘She’s a pretty little thing,’ he said and even managed a tremulous smile. ‘I thought she’d be all red and wrinkly, being so little.’

  Eveleen shook her head. ‘No, she was even pretty when she was born. She’s been good this morning, thank goodness, but you should hear her when she’s hungry and starts to yell. She’s a real little fighter.’

  ‘Good job,’ Andrew said soberly. ‘She’s going to need to be.’

  ‘And there’s something else she’s going to need too.’ Eveleen’s tone was a mixture of sadness at the mother’s death and bitterness at the father’s desertion.

  Andrew looked at her, a question in his eyes.

  ‘We’re going to have her baptized. I’m going to see the minister before we leave today. And I feel . . .’ Eveleen ran her tongue over her lips. ‘I think she ought to have godparents. Andrew, would you be her godfather?’

  Despite the sadness of the day, Andrew’s smile lit up his face. ‘I’d be honoured, Eveleen. Thank you.’ They seemed to Eveleen to be only the dregs of comfort yet as he looked down at the sleeping infant in his arms Andrew said again, ‘Oh thank you,’ as if she had given him the moon.

  Forty-Five

  Eveleen had not been to work since Rebecca’s death. On the morning following the funeral, there was a knock at the door of their home.

  ‘Who can that be at this hour?’ she grumbled, picking up the baby who was whining. Any moment now Bridie would open her mouth wide and start to yell lustily.