The Cuckoo's Child

by Marjorie Eccles

  He leaned forward for the tongs and replenished the fire with another lump of coal. Sparks flew, as a tall grandfather clock ticked away in the corner, its silvery chime, when it came, identifying it as the one Laura had heard in the hall. The shadow of the old man’s profile, thrown on to the wall by the lamp burning on the desk by his elbow, had a fierce, patriarchal cast. He might be the sort of person who would overwhelm one, on the other hand he might be kind. He had his little vanities – and not inconsiderable ones. His good suit was of grey worsted, his brown boots polished like conkers, a heavy gold watch-chain spread across his waistcoat and from it depended a circular gold sovereign case and a gold fob seal.

  She stood up, sensing the interview was at an end, and rather glad that it was. ‘I’ll start first thing tomorrow morning, Mr Beaumont. I promise I won’t prolong my duties and subject you to any unnecessary expense.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be here long if you did, lass.’ He smiled grimly, then gave her one of the long, penetrating stares she was becoming used to. ‘Aye,’ he said eventually. ‘I reckon you’ll do well enough, Laura Harcourt. You’ll do.’

  As if on cue, the doorknob rattled and Una came into the room. ‘Have you finished putting Miss Harcourt through the third degree, Grandpa?’

  ‘If you mean have we done talking, we have.’

  There was a challenge in the way their eyes met before Una turned to Laura. ‘Then come and meet the rest of us, Miss Harcourt.’

  Five

  When Una pushed open the door to her mother’s sitting room, it at first appeared empty, a low-ceilinged room cluttered with too much furniture. Only a single lamp burned, shaded in dark red, and the last of the daylight was further dimmed by ferns, potted palms and heavy plush curtains of a deep plum colour, which were half-parted across the mullioned windows. But as her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Laura saw that a trousered leg hung over the arm of a wing chair and a woman slept by the fire. It seemed to be a room created for somnolence, a room that spoke of long hours of stifling ennui, of occupants who had long since ceased to have anything to say to one another, where the mantel clock chiming the quarters and the fall of a coal in the grate, the turning of a page or the click of a thimble placed on a table would be the only sounds to break the silence.

  Una broke it now by saying, ‘Well, is anyone at home here?’

  The leg disappeared, and a young man immediately sprang up from the depths of the chair and made his way with a dexterity that could only have come from long practice between balloon-backed chairs and spindly tables laden with knick-knacks.

  ‘My brother Gideon, resting from his labours at the mill, as you see . . . Miss Harcourt,’ Una introduced them dryly, bending to adjust the lamp so that it burned more brightly. She turned and looked appraisingly at Laura. ‘No, I don’t think that’s going to do. Everyone else calls me Una and I should be mortified if you did not, and I was compelled to call you Miss Harcourt . . . Laura?’

  She smiled, very briefly, but it transformed her. Una Beaumont might not, perhaps, be the cold, sarcastic girl she seemed; or at any rate, not a person to be judged by first impressions – any more than her brother, who looked nothing like someone who had just returned from work at a mill, albeit his appearance was somewhat dishevelled: his high collar was slightly askew, his hair flopped towards his eyes and looked as though he had run his hands through it, more than once. But his tie held a pearl pin, and like his grandfather he had on a suit of the best worsted, which he wore with elegance. He seemed friendly, and his tone was slightly amused as he asked, with a faint drawl, ‘Well, then, Laura, and how did you get on with the old man?’

  ‘Mr Beaumont? I’m not sure, but he seemed to think that “I’ll do well enough.”’

  She had evidently correctly caught Ainsley Beaumont’s tone. They both laughed.

  The woman by the fire, wakened by the sound, sat up with a jerk of her head. Caught napping, she looked affronted at the loss to her dignity, but in a moment she had smoothed her hair and her skirt and was sitting upright, as stiff and unbending as though sleep had never been further away. ‘Well,’ she demanded, discerning the newcomer, ‘and who do we have here then?’

  ‘Come and meet my mother, Laura,’ said Una.

  Amelia Beaumont sat without moving but after a moment offered a handshake. She had been lying in front of the fire, and yet her hand was cold as a frog’s. A heavily built woman in middle age, her curves firmly disciplined in whalebone, she was a commanding figure, handsomely dressed in a snuff-coloured blouse and skirt discreetly trimmed with heliotrope velvet bands. Her dark brown hair, dressed wide, emphasized a skin pale as her daughter’s. Otherwise, there was little resemblance between them, or between her and her son, for that matter. She might once have been considered handsome and might still have been, were it not for the uncompromising set to her mouth and the strange, opaquely dark eyes which now fastened on Laura with a long, considering gaze. ‘So you’re the young woman from down south?’

  ‘Yes, I’m Laura Harcourt, Mrs Beaumont.’

  Until her other clothes had been shaken and pressed free of their packing-induced creases, there had been no question for Laura of changing anything but her travelling shoes for bronze-coloured slippers and removing her coat, and Mrs Beaumont’s gaze travelled over her, from the shining mass of her wavy hair to the row of tiny, lapis-lazuli buttons on her ivory crêpe-de-chine, French-made blouse. ‘Hmm.’ Her look made it clear that she did not approve of what she saw, and Laura was inclined to think that disapproval was the least of it. She was taken aback to see an almost palpable flash of dislike in those opaque eyes.

  ‘So what are you doing up here, then, miss?’

  ‘Well, of course, I’m here to sort out Mr Beaumont’s books for him.’

  ‘And about time too – that room’s a disgrace,’ she returned bluntly. ‘But that’s not what I meant . . .’ She considered Laura again, but the black marble mantel clock chiming six interrupted whatever else she had been going to say, and she put an end to the conversation by pressing large, capable hands on the arms of her chair and standing up in one direct movement. She needed no assistance from the hand her son put out to help her. ‘It’s teatime.’

  Everyone immediately made an obedient move towards the door.

  It was strange eating without the strong light of gas or electricity, but lamplight was gentler, kinder, warmer, leaving the edges of the sombrely furnished room in darkness while its golden, flickering light lit the faces of those around the table. There were just the four of them. The carver chair at the head of the table was empty, though a place was laid. It seemed the head of the house at Farr Clough had decided not to join them on this occasion.

  Amelia Beaumont, absorbed in her meal, said little, though her presence dominated the table. Once or twice as they ate, Laura looked up and caught those curious eyes on her, and felt again that she was being judged, and found wanting. She had never before encountered what she could not but feel was unwarranted dislike, and for a while she tried to overcome it by drawing the older woman out, but her efforts were met with such indifference that her pride would not let her carry on. Perhaps she was imagining the animosity. Yet Laura could not suppress a slight shiver. A feeling that behind those secret eyes, the tight mouth, there was passion, and perhaps something darker, held in.

  She’s clever, this girl – or perhaps just socially accomplished – thought Una, watching Laura try to draw out, first her mother, then Gideon, who responded warmly as they sat down to the usual knife and fork affair of cold meats, tinned salmon and salad, buttered plain teacake and a great array of sweet-stuff, washed down with many cups of strong, dark tea, doubtless not the sort of meal someone from London was used to. Una herself never had much appetite, either, for this vast array of food, especially not after the heavy midday dinner that was always served here at Farr Clough, rain or shine. But no one dared break with tradition, at Farr Clough Grandpa upheld it and was usually here at teatime. It was too bad o
f him – Una hesitated to say perverse, though that was the thought that passed through her mind – not to appear today, seeing that Laura Harcourt being here was his idea.

  At any rate, Gideon was exerting his usual easy charm, enthusiastically expounding a subject he needed no encouragement to talk about. ‘Yes, I do have a motor – of sorts,’ he was telling Laura, ‘but discretion dictates that I mostly keep her down there at the mill. She doesn’t go so well up the hills, I’m afraid. I would have driven to the station to meet you myself, only Grandpa . . . Well, nose to the grindstone and all that. And anyway, he doesn’t approve of cars—’

  ‘Considering the number of times you’ve broken down on the way up here, he can hardly be blamed for that,’ Una commented.

  ‘Oh, well, these dashed hills, as I say – and the old girl is second-hand. Never mind, I have my eye on a topping little Wolseley two-seater that’s guaranteed for hill climbing, when I can get my hands on the ready to buy it, that is. Tell you what, Mother. You persuade Grandpa to part with a hundred and seventy-five pounds and I’ll take you out for a spin when I get it. Even take you down to Ramsden’s,’ he said, smiling at her but adding for Laura’s benefit, ‘My mother walks down to the butcher in Wainthorpe three times a week to buy meat, rather than have them send it up.’

  ‘I’ll not have Joe Ramsden sending up any old rubbish he thinks fit, not as long as I’ve got the use of my two legs,’ Mrs Beaumont stated. ‘You won’t get me going down there in one of those dangerous contraptions, neither. What, a hundred and seventy-five pound! You’ll never get that out of Ainsley Beaumont,’ she added with finality, helping herself to another slice of currant pasty.

  ‘Probably not.’ He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Not when he won’t even think about motorized lorries for the mill. What do we want them for, he says, when we have fourteen horses that don’t need petrol at one-and-three-ha’pence a gallon, and neither do they have brakes that fail and run into trams. If he had his way we’d still be using packhorses as they did in Great-great-grandfather Beaumont’s time.’

  ‘You’ve planted the seed. Let it grow and sooner or later he’ll come to think it was his own idea.’

  ‘How clever you are, Una!’ he replied, smiling, as if the idea hadn’t already occurred to him. She responded only with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘Cross Ings Mill has been in the family for a long time, then?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Oh Lord, yes. Generations,’ Gideon replied carelessly.

  Seemingly, this was a subject which either did not interest Amelia or she did not wish to talk about. Having finished her meal, she took it as a sign to push her chair back. ‘Well, then, if we’ve done, Prissy will be wanting to side all this lot and get it washed up. And I’ve still a lot to see to before I get to bed, so I’ll say good night now and leave you. There’s a good fire in the workroom, and your breakfast will be at half past seven, Miss Harcourt.’ She nodded stiffly to Laura, who made a mental note not to be late. Inflexible routine was obviously the rule in this house and she had no intention of getting on the wrong side of Mrs Beaumont.

  The room they retired to was shabbily comfortable, haphazardly furnished, and one the twins seemed to have made their own. Books and papers were everywhere, and a typewriting machine on a table seemed to be the reason Mrs Beaumont had called this a workroom.

  Laura was glad to sink into a chair by the fire, unable to feel anything but relieved to be rid of a presence she felt to be domineering and humourless, and she surmised she was not the only one. Yet, as if sensing unvoiced criticism, Una embarked on a somewhat defensive explanation. ‘Mother has a lot on her plate, so she’s early to bed, early to rise. It’s not an easy house to run, and we don’t keep a big staff. I expect she’s gone to smooth Mrs Macready’s feathers. As if one more to cook for will make any difference.’

  Mrs Macready had apparently come to Farr Clough when the house had belonged to Sir Gideon Tyas, their maternal great-grandfather, and was still here, despite her old age. ‘Doing us all a favour. Working for Beaumont’s is a comedown, as far as she’s concerned,’ Gideon said with a laugh.

  ‘Beaumont, that’s a French name, isn’t it?’ But it was one Laura had noticed several times amongst the recurrent Hardcastles and Bamforths she’d seen above mill gates and other concerns, on the way to Wainthorpe.

  ‘It might have been once, though we’ve no French ancestors that I know of. We were nothing more than hand-loom weavers up on the moors, until the first Ainsley Beaumont graduated towards owning a small mill in the valley, where the woven pieces could be finished as well. Where the water flowed – plenty of it for powering the mill wheel, and soft for washing the wool. And where there was plenty of room for expansion. Now the whole process of manufacture’s under one roof – thanks mainly to Grandpa – though it was an uphill job, as he never ceases to remind me,’ he added dryly. ‘Beaumonts—’ He broke off abruptly. ‘Sorry, I tend to get carried away.’

  ‘No, no, please, go on. After all, it’s a story to be proud of.’

  He shrugged and said he supposed it was, of course, if you thought about it like that, though you didn’t often, not when you had been brought up with it. You just took it as it came, got on with the day-to-day running of the mill and accepted its profits as the natural outcome.

  If he was endeavouring to sound cynical, he was failing signally; flippancy could not conceal that this was the way to his heart. Laura could see she had touched on a nerve, a passion in him. This cloth-making business was clearly as much in his blood as it was in his grandfather’s, inherited from one generation to the next.

  ‘I’d like to know more about it all,’ she said, ‘don’t forget, it’s all new to me – and by the way, what is mungo? I asked your driver what it was but all he would say was devil’s dust.’

  ‘John Willie? I’m afraid the old so-and-so’s disposition doesn’t improve as he gets older. What he meant was—’ Gideon paused. ‘Old rags and wool are ground together to make a lesser quality cloth called shoddy, and an even cheaper one called mungo. Unfortunately it makes a lot of fine dust.’

  ‘That gets into the men’s lungs, so they can’t breathe,’ said Una.

  ‘It’s cheap, however. Cheap cloth. There’s always a cost.’

  ‘Mostly to folks like Jessie’s father. There’s nothing done about it because money matters more. Even Grandpa has a share in one of these mills.’

  ‘Used to have.’

  A taut silence fell between them, broken only by the sound of the wind in the chimney. Tread softly, Laura warned herself, though she didn’t know why.

  ‘Well,’ she said awkwardly, after a moment, ‘it’s obvious there are more aspects to the wool business than I’d dreamed of. Tell me more.’

  It appeared Gideon had a better idea. ‘It’s far easier to show than to explain. Why don’t I take you round the mill sometime and show you the different processes – that is, if you’re not afraid of noise, and some dirt?’

  ‘I’m used to both. Stepney, where I’ve been working lately, isn’t exactly famed for cleanliness, or silence.’

  She guessed she had surprised them both, but the change of subject seemed welcome, and for a while they talked about the Settlement, the conditions in which the women had been forced to live before being taken in there, and how they were helped. ‘Oh, if you knew how hopeless those women feel!’ Laura finished, ‘when there’s absolutely nothing they can do about the position they find themselves in.’

  ‘But it’s not only in Stepney where that sort of thing happens.’ Una was showing more animation than Laura had seen in her yet. ‘It’s here, in the valley, in Wainthorpe, in the mills and everywhere. Women work ten hours a day in the mill – when they are not having babies – and have to cook and wash and clean for their husbands and children after they get home – and then have to watch these same children going to work half-time in the mill when they’re but thirteen—’

  ‘It used to be when they were only seven or eight, and they wor
ked fourteen hours.’

  ‘So it’s all right, then, for children to work six hours?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, Una. You’re deliberately misunderstanding. My sister,’ he said, turning to Laura, ‘in case you hadn’t guessed, is a supporter of rights, for herself and everyone else. Would it surprise you to hear she also supports votes for women?’

  ‘You can’t have one without the other,’ Una retorted.

  So it was true that the flames of feminism which Mrs Pankhurst and her three daughters had set alight in Manchester and were spreading in London like the Great Fire, were leaping here, too. ‘My friend Eva Carfax is a member of the WSPU and she has told me how strong the movement is here in the North.’

  Quickly, Una asked, ‘And you, too? Are you committed?’

  Gideon sighed. He was beginning to look bored.

  ‘Not . . . exactly,’ Laura said cautiously, unwilling to admit that the extent of her commitment so far had been in occasionally addressing stacks of envelopes.

  ‘That’s something we must remedy, then. You’ll be surprised how many women around here are involved. All sorts of people. Jessie Thwaite, for instance, is one of our strongest supporters.’

  This was no surprise. Jessie was clearly a strong-minded young woman with views of her own. Una, becoming animated, went on to say how she herself helped to draft speeches for the women who worked in the mills and weren’t afraid to stand up for what they felt was right, but who didn’t feel themselves educated enough to put it into the proper words. She wrote pamphlets and letters to the papers, organized meetings, and most importantly, she produced a small, quarterly magazine called Unity, which she wrote mostly herself and distributed, free, as widely as she could in the neighbouring towns.

  ‘In fact, put her in here with a nosebag and a jug of water and you’re unlikely to see her for days,’ Gideon drawled.

  Una ignored him and told Laura there was to be an important meeting in Halifax in a couple of weeks. ‘Will you come? We’re hoping some of the WSPU leaders will be there, and there’s to be a great speaker, a political activist who’s on our side. Do come and swell the ranks.’