Pauper's Child

by Meg Hutchinson

  ‘Then it was I discovered I was pregnant. It was like some terrible nightmare and I was caught in the middle of it. I had to wait a week before my free afternoon when I could see Jason and all of that time I prayed a miracle would happen, that I was mistaken in counting the days since my last monthly, but I was not. I could not look into his face when at last I told him but that wonderful laugh broke out and he swept me into his arms. This was our miracle, he said, this would set us free; on my next afternoon off I must bring the few belongings I had and leave Willenhall. We would be married and find a home somewhere where Julia Montroy’s spite could not reach us.

  ‘And that was how it was. The boy he had tutored was to go to Eton at the beginning of the next term. It coincided well with Jason’s leaving his position and he was given an excellent reference. We came here to live in Wednesbury where he secured a place as tutor to the son of James Adams, a coach axle manufacturer. For seven years all went well; the house we rented at the foot of the steps leading to St Bartholomew’s was small but cosy and we were happy. In the evenings your father would take pleasure in sharing his beloved books with you, telling you stories of gods and heroes, then at weekends we would walk in the park or picnic in the cornfields which border the town and he would laugh when each time you asked to hear again the story of Demeter and her daughter Persephone…’

  She had loved that story. Deep inside Callista smiled. Her child’s heart would break at the sadness of a mother weeping for a lost daughter, then pound at the relating of the girl’s capture by Hades, the powerful god of the underworld. Her father had made it all seem so real.

  ‘… the classics were his passion…’

  Recalled by that quiet laboured voice Callista allowed the picture to fade back into the wells of memory as her mother continued.

  ‘But you were his delight, his own little wood nymph. Then of a sudden things began to change. The smile was no longer in his eyes, the laughter not so quick to his lips. He became quiet, withdrawn into himself. His books lay untouched and he was no longer so ready with a story. I asked what was wrong, begged him to tell me, but it was no use. Was it that he had found someone else, was he wanting to leave us as he had Julia Montroy? The thought dominated my mind night and day until I thought I would go mad. After weeks of torment I found the courage to tell him if what I feared was true then he was free to go, he must not let us stand in the way of his own happiness. I remember the look that came to his face, the love in his voice as he held me. We were his happiness, he said, his wife and daughter were the breath and blood of his body, they were his very soul…’

  Tears sparkled along lashes resting on pallid cheeks found an echo in Callista. Her mother had suffered so much, the death of a husband dearly loved, the struggle to rear a child with help from no one; she had worked herself to a standstill and for what?

  ‘Then no more than a day later he was removed from his post at Hollies House. No explanation was given other than he was no longer required. He was like a man destroyed.’ Ruth Sanford’s eyes opened but it seemed they watched some scene Callista could not see, her words no more than a whisper. ‘For weeks he was without employment, each letter he wrote bringing the same reply… it was felt he was not quite suitable for the position. But at last he secured a post as teacher at St Bartholomew’s School for boys and gradually the smile and laughter returned and we were happy again. The bad time was ended, only… A cough rattling in her chest, Ruth paused but would not be silenced. ‘Only it was not ended. Almost a year later it returned, a perfect copy of all that had gone before. Your father’s position as teacher was withdrawn and he was dismissed with no reason or reference given.’

  ‘But why, what had he done?’

  Turning her glance to her daughter, Ruth’s eyes glistened their sadness. ‘We asked ourselves that question, Callista, but we could find no answer. He wrote letter upon letter seeking a teaching position but to no avail. It seemed the world had turned its back. We had to leave the home we had built together and come here to Trowes Court and Jason… Jason took the only job offered him, he went to work at the steel foundry. I knew he hated it and my heart ached for him, but we had to live. He never complained but his eyes told their own story. His heart too was aching. But the months passed and I thought my prayers for his happiness to return were being answered as I watched him with you, teaching you, explaining things to you.

  ‘Then once more my hopes were dashed. Oh, he was not dismissed from his employment, but I knew something was not right, I had learned to read the signs. I saw them become ever clearer but still he would not say their cause and all I could do was pray. I watched him all of those last few years, watched him become even more depressed and then one awful day they brought him home. The men with him told me he did it knowingly. They said he knew what he was doing.’ A sob adding to the cough shaking her thin frame she dragged at the cold air, sucking it into gurgling lungs. She held the cloth to her lips with one hand while the other pushed weakly at Callista’s as she tried to cover the frail shoulders. ‘Now child…’ she breathed, ‘I have to tell you now. The men, they said your father turned away from them, walked some distance beside the railway line which ran through the foundry yard; then when he reached a spot some distance away he stopped walking. They said he watched the engine pulling wagons of ore behind it, watched it coming towards him. Then he stepped between the rails and stood quite still in the path of the moving engine. The driver sounded his whistle and the men began to run but they were too late, as the driver applied his brakes, Jason… Jason walked straight into the engine. I… I could not believe… for months afterwards I tried to understand…’

  A fresh spasm claiming the thin body, Callista felt her own heart twist. Her mother had suffered so much, been hurt so deeply.

  ‘I… I lay at night in the bed we had shared.’ The cough racked words came so quietly Callista had to kneel to catch them. ‘I tried to find the reason, thought of those men and the words they said as they laid the board with my husband’s body across two chairs; it was as if something drove him to do it, to throw himself beneath that engine. If that was true then… then it was something he kept from me.’

  Strength almost gone, Ruth’s eyes closed. What was her mother telling her? Callista remained perfectly still. Was she saying her husband was driven to take his own life, because he saw death as the only way out of a misery so terrible to bear?

  Watching the pale face, its dark circled eyes still closed, she could not hold back the sob thick in her throat. Her mother was the gentlest, kindest woman; why… why had she been given so much unhappiness!

  ‘No, my dearest…’ Purpled lids lifting, Ruth Sanford smiled weakly at the words unwittingly whispered aloud. ‘You could ask why was I given so much happiness. Despite the hard times your father and I never ceased to love each other; that was heaven’s gift to us, a deep abiding love. Oh, Callista, my precious one!’ Her wasted hand catching her daughter’s, Ruth gazed into violet eyes swimming with tears. ‘If I could give you the world’s greatest treasure it would be a marriage like mine, a husband with whom you would know the love your father and I knew, but only God can give such blessings. Trust Him, Callista, trust Him and your own heart, go the way it leads…’

  The last strength spent, the tired eyes closed and there was no resistance to hands being tucked beneath the sparse covers. Pressing a kiss to a brow damp from the exertion of the continuous cough, Callista went quietly from the room.

  Had her father taken his own life in order to protect his wife and child? But to protect them from what? What could he possibly have done which made his life too intolerable to be lived?

  Downstairs in the tiny cramped living room she fed the fire just sufficient coal to keep it burning. Leaving the kettle to boil she carried the near empty coal bucket out into the yard, staring at it as she set it down.

  Julia Montroy! The name hit her brain with the shock of a stone striking between the eyes. The teacher who had made her young life such a
misery had the surname Montroy. Could it have been one and the same; the same woman to whom her father had been engaged? The one he had left in order to marry her mother? Maybe it was not something her father had found which had hounded him to his death but rather something which had found him.

  Returning to the living room, Callista tried to analyse her thoughts but always they returned to the same question. Was the Miss Montroy of St James’s School the Julia Montroy of her father’s past? If so, was she in some way responsible for Jason Sanford’s suicide?

  6

  The whole idea was ridiculous! Walking quickly, Callista turned along Foster Street, the questions that had plagued her earlier returning to her mind as her path followed the narrow Paget’s Passage which ran close to the grey stone St James’s church, opposite which stood the high storeyed school. How could a teacher, a woman of education, be responsible for a man taking his own life? It was the stuff of fantasy! But Miss Montroy had not been like the rest of the staff; only she had made a misery of a child’s days in that establishment, only she had treated a young girl with nothing short of cruelty.

  ‘I saw… I saw him there and I knew…’

  Words which had stayed with her through the years, their returning always accompanied by fear, seemed to whisper from the surrounding darkness.

  Why?

  The whisper which part of her tried to tell her existed only in her mind, that it was no more than imagination, seemed to draw closer.

  ‘…it was because of her… her and you…’

  Across to her right the churchyard trees creaked and rustled among the shadows, branches thin and black reaching towards her as a dark sleeved arm had so many times reached for a frightened child and suddenly Callista was back in that dreaded classroom, a vicious hand grabbing for her.

  ‘No… no, you cannot blame him!’ Lost in her childhood world Callista cried out. ‘He loved her… he…’

  ‘I’m not blaming anyone.’

  Shaken by strong hands Callista was dragged from the shadows of the past; the hands holding her arms were real, the voice clear and distinct.

  ‘I’m not blaming anyone,’ it repeated, ‘except you! Have you no more sense than to be walking alone at night? I take it you are alone unless the “he” you babbled on about has chosen not to show himself.’

  ‘I… I was not aware I was speaking aloud.’ Still slightly bemused, the present not yet fully extricated from the past, Callista pulled free.

  ‘Obviously! Nor do you seem to be aware of the risk you take walking alone at night.’

  Callista felt the sting of the cynical reply and the resentment it aroused in her marked her answer. ‘I am in no danger, people of these streets are no threat.’

  ‘No?’ It was quiet, wrapped in a breath of velvet smoothness. ‘I am here in this street, can you say I am not a danger, that I pose no threat?’

  Suddenly, startlingly aware the narrow street was deserted apart from the two of them, Callista’s heart raced. ‘Excuse me, I… I am in something of a hurry.’ Stepping to one side of a figure so tall it seemed to overshadow her she caught her breath as the man moved to block her way.

  ‘Not so fast… we are not finished, you and I!’

  What did that imply? Drawing her shawl tight about her Callista tried to control nerves beginning to jangle. The voice was one she did not recognise and the face… it was kept carefully, deliberately to the shadows; and why prevent her passing, was it because he intended to rob her or was his mind set upon a deed far worse?

  Using every ounce of will power, Callista pressed her feet hard to the ground. She must not run, she might not outpace him and if he found the depth of her fear then surely he would take advantage; but remain calm and he might just go on his way.

  ‘You are not from Paget’s Passage?’

  It seemed he stared at her yet she could not be sure; the obscuring gloom was too thick a veil to penetrate with any certainty. Why had he asked such a question, what difference could it make where she came from? But it was best not to anger him. Heeding the caution of her mind Callista answered. ‘I… I live in Trowes Court.’

  Etched black against the deep grey of the moonless night, the head moved. He was taking stock of her. Callista’s nerves screamed but she would not let herself give in to them.

  ‘Trowes Court?’

  It was quietly said as before but the velvet smoothness was gone, replaced by disbelief.

  ‘I know people of Trowes Court but you are not one of them.’

  ‘Then you do not know as much as you think you do!’

  Hearing the intake of breath Callista held her own. Why had she answered so sharply when every sense had told her that was the worst thing she could do?

  ‘Then enlighten me, tell me what I do not know.’

  There was a hint of laughter in the reply emanating from the darkness; mockery or pleasure at having someone smaller and weaker than himself to bully and frighten? But she would not allow him to see her fright, that pleasure at least she would deprive him of. Her fingers clutched tightly to her shawl, her throat dry with apprehension of how he would react; but she had already cast caution to the wind by answering as she had so why not speak her mind. She would suffer as much for a pint as for a quart!

  ‘I have no doubt there are many things you do not know,’ she said scathingly, ‘such as that accosting a woman is against the law. I would also say it is an appalling breach of good manners but then you would probably not appreciate the difference between good and bad in anything; but to answer your request I will tell you: you do not know all of the people living at Trowes Court… for example the Sanfords, those who are neighbours to the Poveys!’

  ‘And you are a Sanford?’

  ‘That is none of your business!’ Callista’s voice cracked like ice. ‘Now do what you have set your mind upon and let me be on my way.’

  A definite chuckle brushed the space between them before melting into the shadows.

  ‘Do what I have set my mind upon. Now what, I wonder, could that be?’

  He was laughing at her! Callista burned beneath a flush of anger. ‘You know very well,’ she spat. ‘It might be dark but not so dark you cannot see my dress and deduce from it that I have no money, therefore I doubt your intention is one of robbery!’

  ‘You are correct.’ He laughed openly. ‘I am not thinking to rob you, Miss Sanford… or should that be Mrs Sanford?’

  He intended to take his time, to play her like a cat would play a mouse; but she must get to the market and then home, her mother would be needing her.

  Worry for her mother drowning both fear and anger her eyes strove to penetrate the shrouding darkness, to reach the fact at its heart. ‘Please.’ Both hands dropped, releasing the shawl to fall open. ‘Please, I must get to the market, my mother… please just take what you want and let me go.’

  Once more the figure silhouetted against the night lifted its head sharply, its words when they came a mixture of accusation and demand. ‘The market! Why there when only a moment ago you said you had no money… or is it there you hope to earn some? The Turk’s Head… the Green Dragon or maybe you prefer one of the many other establishments plagued by ladies of the night.’

  He thought her a prostitute! Callista’s cheeks flamed afresh. But what did it matter what this man thought, what did it matter what he did to her so long as it was over quickly. Eyes closing, she clenched her teeth against paralysing nausea as strong hands closed over her arms drawing her close against a hard body.

  *

  The market place was empty. Candlelit jars which were strung across each stall had now been extinguished. She held a hand to the sharp pain throbbing beneath her ribs, her breathing hard and rasping from non-stop running. That man had enjoyed humiliating her, enjoyed forcing her…

  From one corner of the entrance to the narrow street, the Shambles, where butchers’ stalls sold every kind of fresh meat, a shout of laughter accompanied a group of men approaching the Green Dragon Hotel and
Callista pressed into the shadows. Waiting while the group passed inside she stared at the vacant stalls, their poles rising like skeletal limbs in the darkness. She had been freed of those hands at last. He had thought her too spent or too afraid of him to move but as his hands had tightened their grip she had kicked out, her boot striking with a crack across his shin, and as his hands fell from her arms she had fled. His shout had followed her, echoing from the shrouded walls of the church, passing like some tuneless song from stone to stone. Surprise or anger at her escaping him? Callista dragged in a ragged breath. She had not paused to find out but had raced away, dreading every moment of that wild flight to hear his steps coming after her.

  But it would have been as well to have run in the opposite direction, to have raced back to Trowes Court instead of the market. She had hoped to be here early enough to earn a few pennies helping to clear the stalls and carts as trade for the day ended, but both the Shambles and Market Square were empty of traders; the only people to be seen were men returning from their shift at the collieries or iron foundries, boots striking on the cobbles as they passed, while others turned towards the Golden Cross Inn, the light of whose low bow fronted window Callista could see beckoning from the other side of the Market Square.

  He had known she needed to get to this place quickly, she had told him of her need… of her mother’s need… yet still he had held her. Despite the fear that had gripped her then, or maybe because only now would her mind allow the full horror of it to become clear, Callista’s thoughts returned to the events of minutes ago. She had begged that man to let her go, sobbed to him to release her, but it had done no good. Intent upon his own dreadful business, mindful only of his own needs, he had simply snatched her closer… and now it was too late. But it did not matter what had happened to her; the only important thing was her mother’s welfare.