The Cuckoo's Child

by Marjorie Eccles

  ‘Jolly, isn’t it?’ Tom reached his hand outside to slap the side of the car as though it were a horse. He had to raise his voice to make himself heard above the engine. He seemed entirely to have recovered his good humour.

  When they reached Wainthorpe she said, ‘Will you stop at Cross Ings, please? I’d like to see your mother, Tom.’

  He threw her a quick glance. ‘Are you sure?’ But when she replied with certainty that she was, he said nothing further and eventually drew the car into the silent, weekend mill yard.

  They found Sarah, not in the best parlour where they’d had tea, but in the big, comfortable room that served as the main living room and kitchen, a room with a square scrubbed table in the middle and a range where the fire burned brightly.

  Everything was tidy and Sunday-quiet, not even the hum of the mill from behind the wall. Sarah was sitting in a rocking chair, reading, wearing a cream shantung blouse, fastened by a small gold bar brooch at the high neck, and a belted dark blue skirt that showed off her still slim waist.

  ‘Look who I’ve brought to see you. I promised I’d bring her back, didn’t I? And Mother, I’ve told her. She knows now.’

  Sarah took hold of Laura’s arms and looked gravely into her face before enveloping her in a warm hug then settling her into a chair by the fire.

  ‘Mrs Illingworth, when Tom brought me here the other day,’ Laura said shyly, ‘I couldn’t think why I felt so much at home. Now I know why, of course. This used to be my home.’

  ‘You were too little to remember it. You weren’t yet two when you left us.’

  ‘All the same . . . Tom has told me why I was sent away – because of . . . of Mrs Beaumont.’

  Sarah’s eyes rested on her flushed face. After a moment, she said, ‘Don’t make too much of that. I’ve known Amelia Beaumont all my life, we went to school together, and she was always self-willed, but there’s no real harm in her.’

  ‘Then why did she do such a thing?’

  ‘Well.’ Sarah hesitated. ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘We’d better have a cup of tea, then,’ Tom said.

  ‘You’ll want something more than a cup of tea – you won’t have had any dinner, I suppose?’

  ‘I’m not hungry, really, Mrs Illingworth.’

  ‘Are you sure? Well, if you say so . . .’

  Laura would have liked nothing more than to seize on this chance to talk of her mother, but she had to learn how Amelia had managed to take her away – and why. Sarah moved the kettle from the hob on to the coals, brought the violet-patterned cups and saucers from the sideboard in the best room, while Tom fetched milk from the cellar, and from the corner cupboard a tin containing parkin, the spicy ginger cake Sarah had baked when Laura had first had tea here.

  ‘Well, you see, it was when my husband, Tom’s father, was the office manager, here at Cross Ings. It was on a day when Ainsley had to stay at home, up at Farr Clough, on account of he’d slipped on the floor of the carding room and broken his ankle. Easy done, with all that grease everywhere.’

  As he couldn’t get down to the mill, Ainsley had sent for his bookkeeper. Tom was at school and Sarah and the child went up the hill with him. It was late summer, the bilberries were out up on the moor and Sarah had taken a basket to gather some for a pie. They had walked up Syke Beck Lane, Henry Illingworth carrying little Laura, and by the time they got to the top, where the bilberries grew in profusion among the heather, she had fallen asleep in his arms. She didn’t waken when Sarah laid her on the grass on her shawl and when Henry left, took her basket to gather the berries, keeping an eye on the still sleeping child a few yards away, straightening up from the back-breaking work every few minutes. She soon had enough fruit, and decided to call it a day. As she started towards where she had left the little girl, she saw the shawl still lay spread on the grass, but the child had gone.

  ‘My heart stopped, I’ll tell you! It hadn’t been but a minute since I’d last looked, and I thought at first you’d wakened up and toddled off by yourself. I was terrified you might have fallen into the beck and got carried away. I seemed to search for a lifetime, but it was all over in five minutes, you know. I looked up and there was my husband with you in his arms.’

  They had met, he and Amelia, on the path from Farr Clough, Henry on his way back to where he had left his wife and Laura, and Amelia coming towards him with the child in her arms. Laura was kicking and crying, frightened at being held so tightly by a stranger, and Henry had snatched her back, demanding an explanation. But Amelia had fled, sobbing.

  Laura was shocked. ‘Why would she do something like that? Do you think she meant to harm me?’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘I’ve thought and better thought about it but no, it wasn’t that. It was more likely – likely she wanted to keep her eye on you as you grew up, stop your grandfather getting too fond of you. Ainsley had always had a very soft spot for your mother.’ She hesitated, then added quietly, ‘Happen to turn him against you, if she could.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have done that, surely, to a child?’ Laura exclaimed.

  ‘There’s not much Amelia wouldn’t do, especially for her children, never forget that! But I’ve told you, I’ve known her all my life, and whatever she is, I don’t believe her capable of hurting a child. Mind you, I pity anybody that gets the wrong side of her. She was always high strung, liked her own way, you know, and I don’t reckon she’s changed much. She could be frightening, even then.’

  ‘But what did she hope to gain by doing something so – well, pointless, snatching a baby like that?’

  ‘I don’t suppose she saw it as pointless – maybe she thought she could make Ainsley believe your place was with your real family, not with me. But he wasn’t as daft as all that, he knew what Amelia was like, that she could have made life miserable for you at Farr Clough. He was right to send you away, where she couldn’t touch you.’

  ‘And I was lucky, the people he sent me to were as good to me as you had been.’

  ‘I only did my best,’ Sarah said quietly, bestowing on her a warm, loving look. ‘But oh, how I missed you when you went! God is good, to send you back, Laura.’

  Fifteen

  ‘You’re nervous of meeting them all.’ Tom paused with his hand on the door of the motor he had brought to a halt in front of Farr Clough. He had come round to hand her out, but Laura sat where she was, hesitating.

  ‘Is it so obvious? Well, yes, to be truthful, I believe I would rather face Sim with his teeth bared at the moment,’ she admitted with a shaky laugh. With all that had happened over the last few days her confidence had taken a battering and she was no longer as blithely sure of herself as she usually was. ‘In fact . . . Maybe you would just stay with me, just until I’ve told them?’

  He helped her down from the car. ‘Do you need to ask? You should know that I will. I will stay with you – always, Laura, if you will let me.’ He spoke urgently, gripping her arm, and she was conscious of his size and strength, some new purpose in him. ‘Will you let me?’

  Shock and the suddenness of it made her heart thump painfully.

  ‘It’s too soon, I know. This isn’t how I meant it to be, none of it. We should take time to get to know each other better . . . though I for one—’

  She pulled her arm free. ‘Please, Tom, no. I – I don’t know. No, don’t ask me . . .’

  A painful moment of silence ensued. The silence grew.

  ‘You’re right, of course,’ he said stiffly, at last. ‘I should not have spoken. There are things you must know before . . . things I should have told you—’

  He swore under his breath as the door was flung open and Gideon came out.

  Their eyes held for a moment or two longer, but Gideon was waiting and in the end they had to move towards the house. Too full of what he had to say to have noticed anything, Gideon told them the police were here again, and abruptly relayed the shocking news they had brought with them about his grandfather.

  ‘You mean –
are we to understand he was attacked . . . killed?’ Tom repeated.

  ‘There doesn’t seem to be much doubt about it. They’re waiting in Grandpa’s study, the police. They’ve been cross-examining everyone here, and now they want to see both of you. I warn you, they’ve been through all his papers, and they know everything, Laura.’

  ‘What? Why do they want to see me?’

  ‘I think, Laura, ‘Tom said, ‘that other business will have to wait for the time being.’

  Gideon threw them a mystified look, but then he shrugged and went with them into Ainsley’s study where the police were waiting, introduced them and informed the chief inspector that he had told the newcomers about the recent developments. ‘You don’t want me any more?’

  ‘Not for the moment, sir.’ The door closed behind him and Womersley said, ‘Please make yourselves comfortable, Miss Harcourt, Mr Illingworth.’

  He was sitting behind the desk in Ainsley’s chair, a ponderous man of similar build to Ainsley. Comparisons stopped there, yet for one horrified moment Laura had the impression that it actually was her grandfather himself sitting there, as he had on the day she had arrived at Farr Clough, the clock ticking companionably behind him.

  ‘This is a miserable business for you to return to,’ he continued, ‘but I just have a few questions about the day Mr Beaumont died, which won’t take long. No doubt you’ve had a tiring day.’

  That, Laura felt, was the least of it. The previous sleepless night, and everything that had happened today to turn her life upside down, culminating in what had just passed between her and Tom, the undercurrent of feeling still running between them, was beginning to make her feel light-headed. But he was an avuncular presence, this policeman, with a strong local accent, stolid but unthreatening. His sergeant, a fidgety, sharp-eyed, well-dressed young man with scrubby fair hair, who was perched on the edge of the desk, notebook at the ready to take down everything she said, no doubt, unnerved her more. ‘We’ve been in London.’

  ‘So I understand. I take it you went to see the solicitors who drew up Mr Ainsley Beaumont’s new will?’ Womersley’s voice had taken on a different tone and Laura looked at him sharply. ‘I must tell you that we have seen the will, and read the correspondence between Mr William Carfax and your benefactor.’ He tapped the file in front of him on the desk. ‘It seems we must congratulate you, Miss Harcourt. You are a very fortunate young lady.’

  Laura stiffened. ‘My benefactor, as you call him, was my grandfather.’

  ‘Your grandfather?’ There was a significant pause. Womersley and Rawlinson exchanged looks. ‘Is that so? Then your father was—’

  ‘My father was his son, Theo.’

  ‘I see.’ He looked at her consideringly. ‘The letters Mr Beaumont exchanged with Mr Carfax did not tell us that.’

  ‘Letters? I don’t know anything about any letters. And as a matter of interest, nor did I know he was my grandfather – until today. In fact, he was a stranger to me. I had never met him until I came to work here on the library. For some reason he chose to keep me in ignorance of who I was.’ She might one day be able to think of Ainsley more kindly, but at the moment the hurt of all those neglected years was still too much on the surface.

  ‘Yet he left you a considerable amount of money. Which you also knew nothing about, of course.’

  Colour flew to Laura’s cheeks and Tom intervened indignantly. ‘Look here, I’m not sure I like the tone of what you are saying. If you are hinting that Mr Beaumont was killed because of the money he left to Miss Harcourt, I can vouch for it that she knew nothing about it until the will was read – any more than anyone else did, if it comes to that. She had no idea she was in any way related to him, until I told her the truth. And the reason I knew that was because my mother cared for Laura as a baby, after her mother died, until she was taken to live with her new guardians.’

  ‘All right, all right, Mr Illingworth. It’s just that if we can get to know as much as we can about where everybody was at the time Mr Beaumont was killed, it helps to establish a pattern, don’t you see? I’m sorry your mother died, as well as your father, Miss Harcourt. Would you oblige me with her name?’

  ‘I don’t see that has anything to do with what you’re here for,’ Laura replied, flushing even more, her chin lifted, ‘but her name was Lucie Picard. She lived here and looked after the twins when they were babies. And as for what I was doing the day that Mr . . . the day my grandfather died, everyone here will vouch for it that I was working in the library . . . which is something, by the way, I shall not be continuing with. I intend leaving Farr Clough as soon as I can.’

  ‘I understand you might want to do that, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t be convenient just yet. We shall need you to stay here for a bit. We might want a few words with you again.’

  She couldn’t for the life of her see why, but he didn’t speak as if there was any alternative. Then she thought, well, Gideon had asked her to finish what she had started. Irksome as the job had come to seem, she might, in actual fact, gain a certain grim satisfaction in forcing herself to do it. And then again, there was a more pressing matter to her. Tom.

  ‘Would you like to see that correspondence?’ the sergeant asked suddenly, looking at her more sympathetically than hitherto. Womersley clicked his tongue as if he didn’t approve of the suggestion, but didn’t demur when she replied that she certainly would, and the sergeant passed over a folder. She leafed through it, wondering how much more it was going to tell her than she had already learnt. ‘I . . . can’t read all this now.’ Not here, not under the eyes of strangers. ‘There’s too much of it.’

  ‘Take it with you, read it when you have the opportunity,’ Womersley said after a moment. ‘Now, Mr Illingworth, let’s have a few details from you.’

  Rawlinson took note of the fact that he was a railway engineer who had worked for several years in South Africa and was a veteran of the Boer War, which seemed to interest Womersley as much as did Ainsley Beaumont’s provision for him in his will. But Tom, who never talked much about South Africa, cut short his inclination to chat.

  ‘That “provision” for me, as you call it, was money he lent me to put me through my training. I paid it back, though he tried to insist I keep it. He had obviously determined to have the last word by leaving it to me in his will, but I’ve already said I won’t take it. The loan was a business arrangement which I honoured, and I didn’t want any favours.’

  Rawlinson raised his eyes to the ceiling as if such high minded sentiments were beyond him.

  ‘Mr Hirst,’ said Womersley, ‘tells us that he wanted you to take up a position at the mill, but you refused that, too.’

  ‘Since my uncle has told you that, he has no doubt told you I was pretty angry with him over it.’ His brows came together. ‘I felt he was trying to run my life as he tried to run everyone else’s. But it doesn’t mean to say I killed him. In spite of everything, I actually liked the old man a great deal. And . . . I was on my way home when you say he was killed.’

  ‘From where?’

  ‘London,’ he replied shortly.

  ‘Thank you.’ After a few more questions, Womersley said, ‘I don’t think we need keep either of you any longer, for the moment.’

  At the door, Tom said, ‘If somebody had such a grudge against Mr Beaumont that they needed to kill him, surely they would have found some better way than waiting until they could pick up a handy stone to hit him with? Wouldn’t you be better looking for a down-and-out, a tramp, someone like that? God knows, there are enough of them around.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Illingworth. It hasn’t escaped our notice.’

  ‘And that’s a statement of the obvious,’ Womersley said testily. ‘If you plan to murder somebody, a rock isn’t usually the first weapon of choice. On the other hand, if it’s unplanned, and the rock just happens to be there . . . You’ve already checked with the model lodging house?’

  ‘First thing we always do, isn’t it?’ Rawlinson asked, touc
hy as usual on this particular subject.

  Womersley considered him over the top of his spectacles. ‘Aye, and with good reason, lad,’ he said more gently. The model lodging house was where tramps, itinerants, the homeless or the desperately poor, those of no fixed abode, could be given a bed in a dormitory for the night. Even families could find temporary lodging there. The houses were subject to supervision by the police, and as such were always the first places to be visited when searching for suspicious characters.

  ‘Well, it’s been checked and there doesn’t seem to be any likely candidate there. All accounted for. They’ve pulled in an old down-and-out they call Mucky Harry. He swears he had nothing to do with it but they’re keeping him in the lock-up for now. Unless something else turns up, they’ll have to let him go sooner or later, meanwhile he’s happy enough with three meals a day and a bed.’

  ‘No strangers seen in or around the town?’

  ‘Sergeant Binns and his lot are still making enquiries. It won’t do any good, though, will it?’

  On the face of it, the very nature of the crime suggested a crude, random attack by some loiterer like this Mucky Harry character attacking Beaumont in the hope of what he could get. Maybe such a person had been interrupted, maybe somebody had come along and he’d panicked, got rid of the corpse into the water before there had been time to relieve him of his valuables? It would suit everyone if this turned out to be the case. Even Womersley, Rawlinson suspected. But he said, after a moment or two, ‘This wasn’t done by some passing stranger.’

  ‘Oh, sure of that, are you?’