by Anne Bennett
She doubted it, because Tilly, bless her, also tried social services and the local authorities and came up against a brick wall.
It was now mid-December and Hannah knew there was only one avenue open now and that was to go and see Matthew’s mother and ask point blank if he was her adopted son. And she had to do it quickly. She didn’t know the number of the house, but Angela had given her a description of where it was and told her it was called ‘Stonehaven’. Hannah knew she had to go there and find out the truth. She was desperately worried about Angela’s reaction should Matthew prove to be her son for since the first visit, Angela had been back only once and Hannah was sure that that had been at Matthew’s instigation.
He was a good influence on her daughter, she thought, and a lovely, lovely boy and they were definitely very fond of each other. She wondered if she was about to blow their world apart.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hannah got off the bus and looked about her, dreading what she must do. Icy relentless rain fell in sharp spears and the leaden grey sky did little to lighten her mood as she pulled her coat around herself a little more and shivered.
This was unfamiliar territory for her. She’d been into the centre of Sutton Coldfield a few times before for bits of shopping she couldn’t get in the village, but this was a bus stop or so before the terminus. She’d asked the help of the bus conductor and he pointed out the way as she alighted by the small parade of shops.
As directed, she walked past the girls’ grammar school and on up the hill, over the railway line and there, just as he said, was Somerville Road. The houses were expensive and the road select, which from Matthew’s demeanour and speech Hannah would have expected. Wealthy people lived behind those walls and hedges. Had her son grown up in such surroundings? Well, she’d soon know.
Matthew had told her his house backed onto the lake in Sutton Park and Hannah had checked that on the A-Z and knew his house had to be past another road called Monmouth Drive. She strode out purposefully, wishing now she’d taken up Vic’s offer to go with her to see Mrs Olaffson and drive her to the door. Somehow, though, she’d known she had to do this alone.
Hannah just had Angela’s description of the house to go on yet she recognised it as soon as she came to it. As she’d said, the house was set behind tall, but well-kept hedges with a short fence before them that ended in a wrought-iron gate with the house name ‘Stonehaven’ on a brass plaque across it.
She opened the gate and looked at the sweep of gravel path that scrunched under her feet as she stepped forward, shutting the gate behind her. The house itself was magnificent, proud and majestic with three storeys and many windows and a host of chimneys on top of the red-tiled roof. The studded oaken door with gleaming brass letterbox was approached via three stone steps and Hannah would allow herself no hesitation as she stepped forward and pressed the bell and heard it resound in the house.
She’d taken care with her appearance that morning, knowing that it would give her more confidence. She’d chosen a dove grey woollen costume, worn with a gold-coloured blouse, and this was covered with a black fur-trimmed coat and matching hat while her gloves, handbag and shoes were steel grey.
This was the figure Mrs Foley saw as she opened the door. She knew at once the young woman before her was no down-and-out, nor anyone trying to sell her encyclopaedias or religion, and so she smiled and asked, ‘Can I help you?’
Hannah didn’t know if the person before her was Mrs Olaffson or not, and so a little hesitantly she said, ‘I need to see a Mrs Olaffson.’
It was the last thing Mrs Foley expected. In her lifetime of working for the Olaffsons, they’d had few visitors. Family in the early days, the brother of Mr Olaffson and his wife and son and occasional business associates, but no friends called. Not that this young woman looked to be a friend exactly. But no matter, Mrs Olaffson was not to be disturbed or upset in any way, so she said, ‘I’m afraid Mrs Olaffson cannot see anyone this morning. She is indisposed.’
Hannah more or less expected that Mrs Olaffson would not welcome her with open arms. She’d discussed it over and over with Vic the night before and he’d agreed it really was the only thing to do. She could not allow herself to be put off. The happiness of Angela and Matthew was at stake, so she said firmly, ‘I’m sorry, and I do not wish to disturb her, but I really must see her, it’s of the utmost importance.’
Mrs Foley stared at her, the words, the tone, even the young woman’s stance said that she’d stand no nonsense. But she said firmly, ‘I’m sorry but Mrs Olaffson is ill.’
Matthew had said his mother was ill and she had no wish to worsen her condition, but if she did nothing the consequences didn’t bear thinking about. It had taken great reserves of courage to come to the house that morning and she doubted she’d ever have the courage again. ‘I’ll keep her no more than a few minutes,’ she said. ‘Please. I’ll try not to tire her.’
Something in the sincerity and earnestness in Hannah’s voice caused Mrs Foley to relent and say, ‘Wait here. I’ll see if she’s up to meeting you.’
When Marian first saw Hannah framed in the doorway, she reminded her of somebody, but she couldn’t think who. She wondered what she wanted. Normally, Mrs Foley guarded her from others like a mother hen. But when she told her about the woman at the door and what she’d said, she’d been intrigued enough to agree to see her. She hoped that whatever she had to say would help keep her mind off the raging beast inside her tearing her innards apart. She had constant and extreme pain now which the doctor’s tablets gave her little ease from.
She was still in bed. Sometimes she didn’t rise until Matthew was due home when they ate together, or rather he ate and she pushed the food around her plate and hoped he wouldn’t notice. Mrs Foley helped her sit up and while she went to usher Hannah upstairs, she put a silken bed jacket around her and combed her hair.
Hannah knew as soon as she saw Marian Olaffson that she was looking at a woman who was terminally ill. She was painfully thin. Hannah saw that by the wrists peeping beneath the bed jacket sleeves and by the gaunt look of her yellow tinged face. Her red-rimmed eyes were raised to Hannah in enquiry and she saw the pain reflected in them and her heart ached for what she had to ask this woman. She was positive, despite what she’d said to the woman who opened the door, that she was going to upset her.
She cleared her throat as she sat on the chair by the bed as Marian indicated and decided to go straight to the reason she was there. ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I’ve had to disturb you, but it’s a matter of grave urgency.’
Marian’s eyes were more puzzled than ever and Hannah went on, ‘You don’t know me, my name is Hannah Humphries and I’m married to a doctor in Erdington. I say this just to put your mind at rest that I am a respectable person, for I must ask you what you might consider a very impertinent question.’
‘Yes?’
‘You have a son, Matthew?’
‘Yes,’ Marian said, leaning forward slightly.
‘Is he … Was he adopted as a baby?’
Whatever Marian had expected the woman to ask about her son, it wasn’t this. She was angry. How dare a stranger that she’d agreed to see march into her bedroom and ask her things she’d rather not think about? Matthew had been but days old when he’d been placed into her arms that ached for a child and from the minute their eyes met, she’d pushed to the back of her mind the child’s birth mother. She didn’t exist. Matthew Olaffson was her son.
Hannah saw the blood drain from the woman’s face, except for two angry spots of red on her cheeks, as she said haughtily, ‘I really think that my personal affairs are none of your concern.’
Behind the clipped tone, Hannah heard the uncertainty and she said, ‘I understand how you feel, believe me, and I wouldn’t upset you unnecessarily. But, twenty years ago, in a home for unmarried mothers, I gave birth to a baby boy. I couldn’t keep him and he was taken from me, hours after his birth, to be adopted. All the years
since then, I’ve thought of him often and then a few days ago I met your son and he was the image of my fiancé Mike Murphy, the baby’s father.’
‘This is preposterous!’ Marian said, frightened that this woman could claim her son after all these years. ‘Even if Matthew does bear a resemblance to someone in your past, it doesn’t signify anything. Anyway,’ she went on, ‘we came to Birmingham when Matthew was just a young boy. Before that I lived in Leeds.’
‘Yes,’ Hannah said quietly. ‘So did I.’ And then she continued, ‘Don’t worry, I know I relinquished all rights to Matthew years ago. I met him recently because he is engaged to my daughter, Angela Bradley, and I want to be certain there is no way that they are brother and sister before the relationship goes any further.’
‘Oh God!’ Marian clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh God!’ She knew then that Hannah spoke the truth and she knew she was Angela’s mother. That was who she’d reminded her of when she’d first come in.
Hannah felt so sorry for the woman’s obvious distress that she’d inadvertently caused and without thinking, she grasped the hand plucking agitatedly at the eiderdown. She glanced around, certain the woman who’d opened the door to her would throw her out of it if she was to see the state her employer was in.
‘Please,’ Hannah begged. ‘Please stay calm. I know the situation is abhorrent. It is to me as well, but it’s not irretrievable.’
‘You think not? They are promised in marriage.’
‘Yes, I know, but it can’t be allowed if I’m right,’ Hannah said. ‘That is why I had to know the truth.’ She grasped Marian’s hand tighter and looking deep into her eyes said, ‘Your son, Matthew, he is adopted, isn’t he?’ Marian gave one brief nod and Hannah’s head sank in her chest and her breath left her body in a huge sigh.
‘What … what are we to do?’ Marian asked plaintively.
‘They must be told the truth. It is the only way.’
‘Matthew doesn’t know that he’s adopted,’ Marian said, and raising her eyes to Hannah went on, ‘How am I to tell my child his real mother didn’t want him and had given him away?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Hannah said, stung to snap back in spite of her good intentions. ‘My lover was killed. We’d planned to marry by special licence. He was due a forty-eight hour pass, but leave was cancelled. He was blown up on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. I have no family to speak of, my mother died just after I was born, and I was brought up in a small Irish village by my sister. The shame of my arriving there pregnant with an illegitimate child would have been beyond bearing.’
‘Hadn’t you anyone else to turn to?’ Marian asked. ‘What of the young man? Had he no parents?’
‘Oh yes, and they would probably have cared for me and loved Mike’s son,’ Hannah said, ‘but Mike’s father died of a heart attack the day they received the telegram telling them of Mike’s death and his mother, severely traumatised, was taken away by her sister after the funeral and no one knew where.’ She looked Marian straight in the face and said, ‘I was destitute. If there had been any way on God’s earth that I could have kept my son, I would have done. When they took him from me, they tore the heart out of me and that, Mrs Olaffson, is what you can tell my son.’
‘I’m sorry,’ mumbled Marian, moved in spite of herself by the sadness in Hannah’s voice. ‘But,’ she continued in an effort to explain, ‘I had years and years of trying for a child. No one understood the torment.’
She sighed. ‘That’s all I wanted you see, a child. I’d known the Olaffson family fairly well, because we lived nearby, although our circumstances were hardly the same. My parents had also died and I was reared by a maiden aunt who had limited resources. I used to hang around outside if I heard Ernest was to come home on leave. He looked so handsome in his uniform. He was an officer, you see, and I was little more than a child.’
Hannah nodded, sensing Marian needed to tell her how it had been for her.
‘In 1918, when the war ended, I was thirteen years old and I loved Ernest Olaffson with a young girl’s passion. He was twenty-two and embittered by his experiences. I had little contact with young men, my aunt couldn’t afford to take me to places where I might meet them, and of course there was no money to present me at court.
‘So, when Ernest asked for my hand in 1926, it was like a dream come true for me. He was thirty then and I was twenty-one years old and I thought I was on the shelf. I knew nothing of lovemaking, but I endured it, welcomed it even, to have a child of my very own.’
Hannah knew that longing. ‘And what happened?’ she asked.
‘Nothing!’ Marian said bluntly. ‘Year after year, I implored God, pleaded on my knees, said novenas, lit candles, had Masses said, made bargains, things I wouldn’t do if God had just let me have a child. No one could understand and certainly not my aunt, who’d never even been married, who wouldn’t even discuss the issue. Nor Ernest, not that he wouldn’t have minded a son of his own of course, but if it wasn’t to happen, he wouldn’t be as devastated as I was.
‘Then in the spring of 1939, Ernest’s brother Maurice married a girl called Phyllis. He was fifteen years younger than Ernest and at twenty-eight knew when war come, as everyone knew it would, he would be called up. There were many such marriages at that time.’
Hannah nodded. She knew of plenty.
‘I liked Phyllis,’ Marian went on. ‘We all lived together, you see, in the big house. I liked Maurice too, to tell you the truth. Ernest never had a good word for him, but I always liked him, because he had a wonderful sense of fun.
‘When he was called up and Ernest was at the factory all day, Phyllis and I were company for one another, though she was just twenty-one and seemed a young girl to my thirty-four years.’
She stopped and seemed far away and Hannah said nothing. She just waited, sensing that Marian was coming to a particularly painful part of the story. Eventually she said in a voice just above a whisper, ‘Maurice was one of the lucky ones rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk and he had a week’s leave after it in June 1946. Phyllis was ecstatic to have him home and his parents held a party for him.
‘When he returned to his unit, Phyllis was tearful and upset and I sympathised with her worry and concern, until I found out that in Maurice’s scant week home, she’d become pregnant. And there was me, trying for years. It was like a mockery.
‘When she gave birth to a baby born in the spring of 1941, I fell into such a deep depression that eventually I was admitted to hospital in the autumn of 1942. Ernest thought I was going mad.’
Hannah remembered her own depression after Angela’s birth and Arthur’s reaction to it and sympathised with Marian.
‘I don’t remember much about it,’ Marian said, ‘but I know I was there a long time, months and months. It was like a fog surrounding me. Phyllis came to visit, but I didn’t know her, even Ernest came a time or two, I believe.
‘I submitted to everything, all their pills and potions, sessions with a psychiatrist and even that dreaded painful electric shock treatment, but my mind was still unable to function. That was until the priest came to see me. A man I’d never seen before and he said, “What do you want, Mrs Olaffson? What is making you so unhappy?”
‘No priest had ever listened to me before. They’d told me it was God’s will that I was barren. This one though was different. “I want a child,” I told him. “Just a child.”
‘“And you can’t have one?” he asked.
‘I shook my head and told him how many years I’d been trying. He really seemed to care and he held my hands while he prayed for me. I don’t know if he spoke to Ernest and we never spoke about it afterwards, but Ernest came to take me home for the next weekend. I was so glad to leave the hospital, but I was far from well.
‘That was the start of many weekends home and then in the autumn of 1944, the nuns came. They were carrying your son,’ she said, glancing up. ‘From the moment I held him close, I felt the swirling fog around me melt away and
the shroud covering my mind and body slipping off. I was whole, complete. A woman with a child. Matthew was just four days old and I imagined he was totally mine, that I’d given birth to him.’ She glanced up at Hannah and said, ‘Never once did I give a thought to you.’
Tears were trickling down the cheeks of both women and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for Hannah to put her arms around this woman she felt so sorry for. They cried together, two women who’d been strangers just a short time before, but who were inexorably linked together.
Hannah pulled away first, dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. ‘And your husband?’ she asked huskily. ‘Did he resent my son, or did he come to love him? Was he kind to him?’
‘Kind?’ Marian said. ‘Ernest didn’t understand kindness. No one had been kind to him his whole life. He hardly knew his parents, brought up by a nanny and off to school by the age of eight, but when Maurice was born, it was completely different. Ernest’s strict, aloof parents were never away from the nursery then. According to Ernest, Maurice got his own way in everything and was bought anything he asked for. Ernest understandably resented the way he was being reared and equally resented the man he turned out to be and was terrified Matthew would go to the bad unless he was brought up strictly.’
‘Was that because he didn’t know where he came from? His parentage?’ Hannah asked.
‘Well yes,’ Marian admitted. ‘And yet it wasn’t just that. Ernest was against extravagance in any shape or form. He disapproved of holidays, for example.’