No Greater Love

by Janet MacLeod Trotter

  Around them the small sheltered garden was a riot of bright spring flowers and pale scattered blossom. Alice walked her away from two women who were sitting in the summerhouse, sewing, with rugs tucked round their knees.

  ‘Tell me!’ Maggie demanded, bursting with curiosity.

  ‘It’s Herbert,’ Alice announced. ‘He’s come to a decision.’

  ‘And?’ Maggie gripped her friend’s arm.

  ‘He’s taking Henry to London with him - his boarding school is nearer London than here anyway. Typically, Herbert only seems concerned with his son’s education.’

  ‘But Christabel? What’s to happen to Christabel?’

  ‘He doesn’t want her with him,’ Alice said awkwardly. ‘Ever since he learned that she was your daughter, he hasn’t been able to bear her near him.’

  Maggie flushed indignantly. ‘Poor lass!’

  ‘It was Felicity who chose her in the first place, apparently. Herbert was never very keen on the idea of a daughter, he would have adopted another boy, but Felicity was insistent. All my brother is concerned about is Henry. It’s likely that Pearson’s will be taken over soon by a larger armaments firm - it’s really in a bad way since the end of the war - and Herbert’s keen to advance his political career in London. So,’ Alice sighed, ‘he’s given responsibility for Christabel to me; washed his hands of her.’

  Maggie gave a whoop of joy. ‘Then I can start seeing her again?’

  Alice smiled broadly. ‘Of course. But there’s something else.’

  ‘What?’ Maggie asked, a shadow falling on her happiness.

  ‘I don’t really wish to stay in Newcastle either. I’ve been thinking of selling Hebron House and moving to London full time too, to further the studio.’

  Maggie’s insides went cold.

  Alice faced her squarely. ‘Christabel’s had such a grim childhood so far, with only me paying her the slightest bit of attention. The only times I’ve seen her acting like a normal, boisterous child is when she’s been to your home. I can’t give her what she needs here and I’m not very good with children at the best of times.’

  ‘So you think she’d be happier in London?’ Maggie said dully.

  Alice looked at her in astonishment ‘No, that’s not my idea at all! I’m sorry, I’m not making myself plain. It depends on Christabel herself, of course, but if she’s happy with the idea, I’d like you to take her back.’

  ‘Me?’ Maggie gasped, quite dumbfounded.

  ‘Well, it’s what you want, surely,’ Alice said briskly, afraid Maggie was going to cry and make a scene. ‘Herbert doesn’t care; he’ll sign anything to be rid of the responsibility.’

  ‘Of course I want her back!’ Maggie cried vehemently. And she threw her arms round the startled older woman and hugged her.

  ***

  It was arranged that Christabel would be brought on a visit and stay for a few days to see how she adapted. Maggie rushed home to tell John the good news. But when she got home there was no sign of him and she was about to set off for the mission when Millie appeared on the stairs. Her face was harrowed.

  ‘It’s Mr Heslop,’ she said. ‘Doctor’s with him.’

  Maggie sprang up the stairs. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘He collapsed this morning at the shop. Doctor says he’s had a heart attack.’

  Maggie gulped in fear. She went barging into John’s bedroom where the doctor was just collecting up his belongings. He saw her stricken face and tried to be reassuring.

  ‘He’s stable,’ the doctor said quietly, ‘but weak. He must rest in bed, of course, and I’ll call tomorrow.’

  ‘Will it happen again?’ Maggie asked in concern.

  The physician shrugged. ‘It’s possible. He must not rush back work or fret about things, so you must keep him quiet and make him rest.’

  Maggie went to her husband’s side at once, riven with guilt for the strain he must have been enduring in silence for months. She took his hand and kissed it. For so long she had thought of nothing else except herself and Christabel and George that she had had no room to think about her quiet, gentle John. How he must have been suffering at the thought of her running off with her former lover. She had thought she felt nothing for him anymore, but seeing him lying there so gaunt and grey-faced, she experienced a warm tenderness, a fear of losing him.

  ‘I deserved a kick up the rear end,’ she grinned at him, ‘but there’s no need to frighten me like this!’

  He tried to smile back and say something. ‘Don’t talk.’ She put a finger to his lips. ‘I’ve got some news that’ll make you better,’ and she recounted everything that Alice had said in the garden.

  John attempted to raise his head. ‘I - I’m - so - happy,’ he managed to say.

  She saw the tears in his eyes and leant over and kissed him softly, affectionately.

  ‘So you get yourself on the mend,’ she ordered, ‘then you can play to her on the piano, do you hear?’

  Maggie sent word to Alice to delay Christabel’s visit until John had recovered. She spent long hours at the house nursing him herself, realising that she cared for him greatly.

  So it was not until late June that the visit was arranged. By then John was back on his feet, though frailer. Maggie had finally persuaded him to give up the shop and hand over the running of the mission to others at the chapel.

  ‘I want you around a canny bit longer John Heslop,’ she told him, ‘if we’re going to raise this child of ours.’

  ‘Ours, Maggie?’ he gasped.

  She saw the hope in his eyes. Silently she ached to think that it would never be George who brought up the girl. Swallowing her emotion, she said, ‘If it hadn’t been for your support, I would never have found Christabel again. I know you love her too and I want you to be a father to her.’

  John reached out and took her hands. ‘Thank you, Maggie. It’s the greatest gift you could give me,’ he whispered.

  The day came and Maggie was suddenly gripped by doubt that Christabel would want to give up her grand life and come to stay with them.

  ‘It’s been nine months since she saw us last,’ she fretted to John. ‘She’s probably forgotten who we are.’

  ‘Give the girl time,’ John replied.

  Maggie watched from the bay window in the sitting room, flooded in sunlight. The room was full of the smell of polish and warm houseplants and the time ticked noisily on the grandfather clock in the corner. Maggie felt as if her life was suspended in that room, as if the past twenty-eight years had all been building towards this moment and that soon she would be put to the test as she had never been before. If she was found wanting, Maggie thought in dread, then the rest of her life would have no purpose at all ...

  Alice Pearson’s car chugged up the street, nosing round the children with their balls and hoops, who stopped to stare. They will be playmates for Christabel, Maggie thought in sudden hope, and the excitement of the moment made her rush out to greet her visitors.

  Christabel was shy and clung to her Aunt Alice.

  ‘Come in, pet,’ Maggie encouraged. ‘Do you remember me and Uncle John?’

  The girl nodded solemnly and looked around the hallway while Millie took her coat. Maggie and John stood hovering nervously, so Millie took the girl by the hand and led her into the sitting room.

  ‘I’ve made jam sandwiches, ’cos I know you like them best, hinny,’ she chatted. ‘And Auntie Maggie’s bought you a new doll to play with.’

  Christabel picked up the doll dressed like a ballerina with dots of red painted on its pale cheeks. She put it down in disappointment. ‘Where’s Bella?’ she asked with an accusing look at the adults around her.

  Maggie stepped forward. ‘The rag doll?’

  The girl nodded.

  Maggie hesitated, then held out a hand. ‘You come with me, Georgina, and we’ll look for Bella. I think she’s hiding upstairs.’

  The girl’s large dark eyes looked unsure. Maggie held her breath. Then the three-year-old put o
ut a tentative hand and reached towards Maggie’s. Maggie gave it a gentle squeeze and the girl gave a quiver of a smile.

  They went upstairs and Maggie took her into the small sunny bedroom at the front of the house where she had spread a patchwork quilt over the bed and arranged the Christmas figures on top of a blanket chest for Christabel to play with. At the head of the bed sat the battered doll, Bella. Christabel ran towards it and grabbed it to her, covering it in kisses. To Maggie’s amazement, she immediately began to talk to the doll as if it were a long lost friend. She spoke to the doll about her mother dying and her brother going off to live in a place called London.

  ‘But I’m coming here to live with you,’ the girl said brightly. ‘Aunt Alice said I could.’

  Maggie felt her throat constrict as emotion swelled inside. She went over swiftly to her daughter and lifted her into her arms.

  ‘You don’t mind if Auntie Maggie gives you a little cuddle, do you?’ she asked with a tearful laugh.

  She felt Christabel’s soft head of dark curls lean against her cheek in a trusting reply of acceptance. Maggie kissed the small head gratefully. It was a tiny, tentative beginning and she was sure there would be clashes and difficulties along the way, but for now they were together, Christabel content to be held in her arms in the warm sunshine of the modest bedroom.

  Maggie closed her eyes and gave swift, exultant thanks. Given time, the girl might allow her to call her Christabel and come to accept the truth that this woman she knew as her aunt’s friend was really her own mother. Given time, Maggie dreamed...

  ‘You must kiss Bella too, Auntie Maggie,’ Christabel insisted, thrusting the doll in her face. Maggie kissed the doll and then kissed the child again.

  ‘Can we go to the seaside and see the dancers with the funny faces?’ she asked suddenly.

  Maggie looked at her in astonishment. ‘Columbine and Pierrot? You remember that from last summer?’

  ‘Course I do,’ Christabel giggled. ‘It was my best day I ever had.’

  Maggie hugged her close. ‘Oh, mine too, you bonny bairn,’ she whispered tearfully. ‘Shall we go down and see Uncle John and the others now?’ How full of joy her husband would be to see her return with Christabel happily clutched to her side.

  Christabel nodded.

  That night, the girl bedded down in her new room, head resting on the rag doll. Maggie lay awake listening out for any cries, remembering the night of Christabel’s birth and her brief time as a mother. Now she was being given a second chance.

  ***

  The following days and weeks were not always easy; Christabel cried for her mother or Aunt Alice and threw tantrums if she did not get her way. She did not understand why her brother could not come and live with them too.

  ‘I want to see Henry,’ she would shout. ‘I want Henry not you!’

  Maggie did not know where she got the patience to deal with the headstrong little girl, but somehow she did. John would give a tired, exasperated smile and say, ‘she’s just like you, my dear.’

  But the times when Christabel climbed onto Maggie’s lap and asked for a story or threw her arms around her neck and gave her sloppy kisses, made up for the difficult days.

  Alice signed over responsibility for the child to the Heslops and Maggie decided this was the time to start calling Georgina Christabel.

  ‘It’s a very special name for a special lass,’ she explained. ‘Like Christabel Pankhurst.’

  She saw Millie roll her eyes but her daughter was curious. ‘Tell me the story.’

  ‘Once upon a time there was a very brave lass called Christabel who went about the kingdom with her mam …’

  To everyone’s amazement, Christabel accepted her new name without complaint. As the year drew to a close, Maggie urged John that it was time to tell Christabel that she was her real mother.

  ‘She’s nearly four and she’s already asking questions; Susan’s bairns keep telling her she looks like me. And I can’t bear it that she still calls me Auntie.’

  But John argued against it. ‘It’ll raise too many delicate questions.’

  Maggie knew what he was thinking; that it might lead to questions about the girl’s real father – if not from Christabel then from neighbours and parishioners who believed the child adopted. Maggie cared nothing for her own reputation but saw how admitting to illegitimacy would embarrass John.

  ‘There is nothing to stop Christabel being encouraged to call us Mama and Papa,’ John relented, ‘now that we are her guardians. But why burden her with the truth of her origins at such a young age?’

  Yet despite Maggie’s coaxing, her daughter persisted in calling them Auntie Maggie and Uncle John.

  ‘You’re not Mama,’ the girl declared. ‘She’s dead.’

  They spent their first Christmas with her at Susan’s house and the next day invited Susan’s children over for a tea party to celebrate Christabel’s fourth birthday. Maggie was delighted to see her daughter playing happily with her cousins. For the first time, Christabel was learning what it was like to be part of the rough and tumble and warmth of a loving family. What did it matter what she called her as long as the lass was happy? That night when Maggie tucked her daughter into bed, the girl yawned sleepily, ‘Will you tell me the story of Uncle Barny’s leg, Mam.’

  Maggie caught her breath. ‘Christabel,’ she murmured, ‘you want to call me Mam do you?’

  The girl nodded. ‘Bella and Beattie and Alfred have a Mam don’t they? So I want one too.’

  Maggie squeezed her tight, her eyes smarting. ‘Well that’s grand. Of course I’ll be your Mam.’

  ‘Tell me the story, Mam.’

  After that, Christabel wanted the tale of Granny Beaton and the house made of heather where they cooked on an open fire. Finally Maggie got her settled with a kiss goodnight and a promise of more stories in the morning. She hurried below to tell John. He was sitting dozing in his fireside chair, head bowed, his book dropped on the floor.

  ‘I can’t believe it; she’s called me Mam without any prompting! It’s much better than being called Mama, isn’t it? To her, it’s two different people.’ She crossed the room and touched his shoulder. ‘John?’

  She tensed, falling to her knees and grabbing his hands. They were cold. In panic Maggie touched his cheek, his brow; both were stone cold. She leaned against him but there was no breath, no heartbeat. He looked so peaceful.

  ‘Oh John!’ she cried and buried her face in his chest.

  While she had been spinning family tales for Christabel, John’s heart had finally given out.

  ***

  So many turned out for John’s funeral that the aisles of the chapel were full of people standing. Maggie had attempted to leave Christabel at home with Millie but the girl had screamed and flung herself at her legs, refusing to be parted.

  ‘She’s terrified of losing you ’an all,’ Millie had said.

  To the disapproval of some, Maggie took the child with her and drew comfort from the small warm hand that gripped hers throughout. Jimmy stood at her other side and linked arms when later they stood by the graveside and the final prayers were said.

  Susan helped Maggie and Millie lay on a tea at the house afterwards. The parlour was heavy with the scent of hot-house lilies sent from Alice Pearson with a message of condolence.

  Later, an exhausted Christabel fell asleep on Maggie’s lap. Susan helped clear up while Jimmy stoked up the fire.

  ‘Will you stop round here?’ he asked.

  They regarded each other. Maggie wondered if her brother was thinking her thoughts: with John gone would she try and find George Gordon? She felt ashamed to be contemplating such action with her husband only dead a week. But she had wrestled with such thoughts through the long sleepless nights since John’s death. Yet she had never heard from George since he had sailed over nine months ago. Had he made it safely to Canada? Perhaps he had found someone else to help him forge a new life in a new country? She had to admit the bitter truth that she
had given up any claim on George’s affections when she had refused to go with him.

  The only one who could comfort her this past week had been Christabel who had climbed into her bed every night with Bella the rag-doll and snuggled into her hold. She would always have her daughter as a tangible reminder of the man she loved.

  ‘Aye,’ she finally answered, ‘me and the bairn will stop here where me family are.’

  Jimmy nodded in approval.

  ‘What will you do with Millie?’

  Maggie gave him a look of surprise. ‘She’s family too; she’ll always have a home with me.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Jimmy smiled. ‘Susan says she’s worried you might not need a housekeeper anymore and that she’ll have nowhere to go. I told her she was being daft but she’s getting’ on in years and frettin’ about the future is Millie.’

  Maggie felt terrible that Millie should harbour such fears. ‘Well she can stop her frettin’.’

  At that moment, a seed of an idea took root in her mind.

  ***

  It was spring-time before Maggie acted; mulling things over in her mind and doing everything she could to reassure both Christabel and Millie that she wasn’t going to suddenly desert them. It was Jimmy who became her greatest confidante and encouraged her plans.

  She had the house valued telling Millie, ‘we don’t need a house this big for the three of us, do we?’

  ‘I can tell when you’re plottin’,’ Millie was suspicious. ‘What you thinking of doin’?’

  ‘Selling the house to buy some’at with a bit of land – enough for a garden and to grow a few vegetables.’

  ‘What you want with land?’

  ‘I want Christabel to know how to grow her own food, to get her hands dirty.’

  Millie shook her head in disbelief. ‘And I suppose you’ve got your eye on some’at?’

  ‘Maybes.’

  ‘Well don’t expect me to do all the diggin’.’

  ‘Jimmy’s ganin’ to help,’ Maggie smiled.

  ***

  A week later, Maggie braced herself for the journey up to Hibbs’ Farm. It was over a year since she had last stood in its forlorn field and part of her dreaded returning. But Jimmy had scouted round and said it was vacant; she was determined to discover if the farmer would sell the plot with its tumbledown cottage. It would be her first choice – the home where her beloved daughter had been conceived – but if not there then some other smallholding on the edge of the city that they could turn into their little Utopia. It would be a lasting tribute to her departed George.