“Miss Ellen!” Bates put his arm around me and waved his hands at the cars honking. “What are you doing out in the middle of the road? Good heavens, you’ll get yourself killed.”
As he led me back to the sidewalk, I looked over my shoulder for the ghost of a man. Sure I felt Jim watching, even though my eyes told me differently.
I get it now, Ian. I know how it feels.
For when a part of yourself is taken, there are a million ways your mind wishes it back.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
MY FATHER DIDN’T STAY LONG. We avoided each other, taking our meals at different times; it wasn’t hard in a house of this size. I retreated to the study, spent my days staring out the window at the people on the street. I dreaded the day Father would give Lily and Bates their notice. Didn’t want to see him hammer the for-sale sign in the garden. Before he left, he reminded me of my only choice—to come back with him, provided I came alone. Provided I never spoke of Faith again. How was that a choice?
“I’ve business in Coventry for a few weeks. Then I’ll be back to wrap things up here. You can stay until the house sells,” he offered, as though he weren’t throwing me out on the street. “But it’s a valuable property. I can’t see it staying on the market for long. Two weeks. Maybe three.”
So I had my deadline. A part of me just wanted to crawl into bed, to burrow under the covers and never come out. It’s what I would have done before. But I knew better now. Knew I deserved better, too.
I took long walks along the shore, mulling things over, the answer as distant as the horizon. I thought about it as I cleared out the hundreds of books my aunt had left me, her literary legacy, now sitting in stacked boxes by the door, waiting for Bates to drop them at the library. I’d painstakingly written “Donated by G.B. Hardy” on the inside cover of every one. I thought perhaps it might inspire someone else to write or maybe even to visit Africa. Aunt Geraldine would have liked that. But I kept her novels. And her typewriter—I couldn’t bear to give it away. The vacant shelves circled around me, row upon row of them. Their emptiness mirroring my own. Mocking me.
What now? What next?
Without someone to please or serve, it all came down to one question: What did I want?
Always my thoughts came back to her. Faith. I wanted to be in her life. To see her grow. Even if I hadn’t the means to support her, I had love to give her. Surely that counted for something.
I hadn’t seen Steele in a few days. Perhaps I’d never see him again. He’d gotten what he wanted—my story. Why would he be back?
No, I couldn’t wait for Steele’s advice or Aunt Geraldine’s to-do list. Nor did I want either. I couldn’t wait for Jim’s ghost, though I swore I felt him watching. And, above all, I would not wait until I had nowhere to go but my father’s farm.
I slipped into the kitchen and lifted the car keys from the hook. The car wasn’t mine to take, but I was only borrowing it. I’d be fine on my own, as long as I took it slow.
The road to the Barnardo Home seemed longer that day and I wondered if I was even heading in the right direction. Eventually, I recognized the long stretch of road where Steele had thrown me the keys. It wasn’t much farther. After a few more miles and turns through town, I rolled up the gravel driveway. Faith wasn’t here. I knew that. But this time, it wasn’t my daughter I’d come to see.
Would Mrs. Winters see me? And if she did, what then?
I killed the engine and sat in the car for a few minutes.
What’s the worst that can happen? I asked myself, envisioning it.
That she laughs at me?
No, Mrs. Winters was not that type. I wondered if she ever smiled.
That she tells me I can never see my daughter again?
That was what I feared most. But doing nothing to stop it, nothing to change it, only ensured it would happen.
I won’t give Faith up again. The first time, I never had a choice. But I do now.
I opened the door and made myself walk the footpath to the front step. Made myself enter and ask for Mrs. Winters. I sat nervously on the edge of the waiting-room chair for what seemed like hours. With no appointment, who knew how long it might take. But I wasn’t leaving until I saw her. I’d made that clear.
I still didn’t know a lot of things: where I’d live, how I’d make it work. But I knew who I was and what I truly wanted—and I needed to say it.
“I’m Ellen Hardy,” I said, standing as Mrs. Winters finally entered the waiting room. I held my head high. “I am Faith’s mother.”
“Is this about the article for the newspaper?” she asked.
“No.” I cleared my throat. “I just want to see my daughter again …” My voice drifted off. I wasn’t really sure what to ask or how this wish might be possible. I just knew I wanted it.
“Come with me.” She led me into the office where I’d first met her with Steele, but she was not the stern matron now; her demeanour had softened.
“I must admit, Ellen,” she said, lifting the teapot from the side table and pouring the steaming liquid into two china cups, “I assumed your only interest in Faith was that Mr. Steele thought it would make a good photo opportunity. She’d been here a year and you’d never tried to contact her before. Never even asked how she was faring.”
“They took her from me right after she was born. I never even got to hold her, Mrs. Winters. As I said before, they told me she’d died,” I explained, ashamed to think that I’d believed their lies. But why wouldn’t I? “I never knew she lived … and now that I do, I need to be a part of her life.”
Mrs. Winters considered me for a moment. “Do you have the means to care for her?” she asked, cutting to the heart of it. “A job? A home?”
I shook my head, worried she’d take the hard line. That it was all or nothing.
“I see. Well, you’re not the first unwed mother, and I daresay, you won’t be the last.” She handed me the steaming cup. “Many, like you, want to be with their children and simply can’t because of their circumstances. It’s hard to raise a child on your own. Especially for a young mother like yourself.”
Hard? It terrified me. I edged the trembling cup onto her desk and looked down at my empty hands. So this is it. This is where she tells me I can’t.
“But,” she continued, “that doesn’t mean it is impossible …”
I glanced up.
She paused. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any training as a domestic servant?”
I told her of my experience as a stewardess aboard the Empress. I even told her of my life at the Magdalene Asylum, my aunt’s passing, and my father’s ultimatum. She swallowed it all with a sip of her tea, and I realized she’d probably heard similarly tragic stories from countless other women. That for her, my story had none of the sensationalism Steele craved. It simply was what it was. Backstory. What concerned her now was what happened next.
After weeks of Steele making me look back, it felt liberating to finally be looking forward.
“It is not our intention to separate mother and child. In fact, I believe that relationship is integral to both.” She looked at me with such understanding. “Dr. Barnardo developed a plan for women in your exact situation. With your experience you’d have no trouble being hired by an approved employer, and there are many in the Liverpool area. We’d board Faith in a home nearby, closer to you.”
I nodded in relief. The car wasn’t mine to take and travelling this far to visit Faith was simply not possible.
“She’d be fostered within walking distance of your employer. You’d pay half of Faith’s fostering from your wages and our benefactors would cover the rest. Five shillings a week.”
“Would I see her?” I asked.
“You could visit with Faith during your time off.”
I could hardly believe it. It wouldn’t be easy for Faith or for me—uprooting her from Anna’s home, the only home she’d ever known, labouring long days for a glimpse of her now and then—but it was something. It was a st
art.
“Thank you,” I said, my heart and eyes brimming with hope. “For doing this.”
“We’re only the trellis,” she said. “A support for those in need.”
I took out my hankie but decided not to dab at the tears. For the first time in a long time, they’d sprung from joy and, unashamed, I let them run free.
“How your rose fares, if it grows, if it blossoms, is entirely up to you,” Mrs. Winters said, reaching over and squeezing my hand. “And it’s my hope that in time, you and Faith won’t need us at all.”
Chapter Forty
WITHIN THE WEEK, Mrs. Winters had secured both a new foster home for Faith and a new job for me. I worked as a housemaid for the Morgans, a wealthy family on the far side of town. It was a good hike from Strandview Manor, but who knew how much longer I’d be able to stay at my aunt’s house? Who knew how much longer any of us had? I’d broken the news of my father’s plans to Bates and Lily. I owed them that at least. Knowing Father, he’d return and toss them out with no notice at all. They were dismayed, but not surprised. Lily would be fine—a young girl like her would have no trouble starting over. But I worried about Bates. Looking back, I realized that he’d been more like family to me than my own father. When I grieved my mother and, years later, my child, it was Bates who listened, who told me things would get better. Bates who picked me up from the asylum and, most recently, from the docks. Bates who’d been my rock during Aunt Geraldine’s funeral and all the aftermath. In his simple, steadfast, and quiet manner, Bates had always been there for me. How could I let Father just turn him out on the streets? But how could I stop him when I was powerless to prevent him from doing it to me, too?
As I child, I had visited the Morgans with my aunt, though I doubted they remembered me. I was not G.B. Hardy’s niece to them, just the maid from Barnardo’s. To Colonel Morgan, I was merely a new name on his ledger. Lady Morgan seemed far too busy planning her luncheons and fundraisers to give me more than a once-over when I appeared for the interview. She’d skimmed my letter of reference from Mrs. Winters. “I told them I’d take you on as a maid, but you can’t live here.” She did not remember having met me before. But I wondered if her daughter did.
Charlotte Morgan had always been a bit of a snob. It didn’t matter that she had a dozen designer dresses, a concert pianist as a tutor, or a powerful father who moved in all the right political circles. What mattered most to Charlotte was that everyone knew it. I remembered meeting her just once, when we were ten, at a fundraiser for African charities held by her mother. My aunt was the guest speaker.
“Did you not know it was a formal event?” Charlotte had asked, eyeing the dress I’d found perfectly acceptable, until then. Suddenly, next to Charlotte’s flounces and bows, mine seemed shabby. Even my hair felt flat and lifeless beside her crown of ringlets, each a perfect gold spiral. “Mother ordered this dress especially from Paris for today.” She smoothed her hands over the skirt. “It cost over six pounds.”
The ridiculousness of it struck me. “How much?”
“Almost seven pounds,” she repeated, revelling in the wonder of the girls gathered around us, their fingers itching to touch the fabric.
“Didn’t your mother just say in her speech that six pounds was enough to feed a whole village for a week?”
The girls around her gasped; suddenly the dress they desired seemed frivolous and wasteful. Like wildfire, red rushed across Charlotte’s cheeks and down her neck. It smouldered under her new pearl necklace and burned right up to the tips of her earlobes where the matching earrings dangled. I didn’t stay long at the event. My aunt gave a short speech on her research about African culture and, in Aunt Geraldine form, excused us. No doubt she wanted to retreat to her study as soon as possible. But I’d felt Charlotte’s hateful gaze on me the entire time.
I felt it on me even now as I dusted her father’s hunting trophies. I wondered if she knew me. If she remembered. And all the ways she might make my life more difficult for it.
I needed this job. With only a few days left before my father kicked me out, a daughter to support, and room and board to pay once I found suitable lodgings, I had enough on my plate without Charlotte. I had no time for a foolish girl’s drama. So during that first week, when she demanded I make her bed again properly, or re-iron her skirts, or even pay for the cup she’d broken because I’d left her tea on the wrong side table, I thought of Faith, I closed my mouth, and I did what Charlotte asked.
All the while, Kate’s words to me on that first day aboard the Empress echoed in my mind. First-class daughters are rich, spoiled brats who speak of nothing but clothes, hair, and dresses. A stereotype, for sure. But one that Charlotte embodied. I’d known many first-class people on the Empress, and liked most. But I’d never like Charlotte. Not because of her class, but because she was simply a first-class brat.
The days of that first week were terribly long and the work was hard, but Monday was my day off and I was taking Faith for the afternoon. Our first outing together. Alone.
I knocked on the front door, the address tight in my other fist. Faith’s new foster family, the Buckleys, lived down by Gerrard Street, an hour’s walk from the Morgans, but the neighbourhood seemed a world away. I could hear the gulls calling from the nearby shore and planned to take Faith there, show her how to skip stones, how to find a world in a tidal pool and a kingdom in a pile of sand. The door opened and a scrawny boy of about five stood on the other side, his matted hair like an upturned nest on his head. He wiped his runny nose with the back of his hand, smearing mucus across his grubby cheek.
“Get away from the door, Daniel! Haven’t I told you never to answer it?” A wiry woman gripped his ear and yanked, dragging him aside. He yelped and squirmed but her pinch held fast. No wonder the poor lad’s ears stuck out like open doors on a Ford. She finally let go and he scurried down the hall. “And tell your brothers I’m still waiting on that firewood. Lazybones the lot of you! You’ll get no supper if that fire goes out!” she yelled after him before rolling her eyes at me, as though I were in agreement. She dried her hands on her skirts. “Honestly, these kids’ll be the death of me.”
I wondered if I had the right house, and worried that I did.
“I’m Ellen? Ellen Hardy?”
“Oh right, right. Faith’s mother. Is that today?” She put her head behind the door and yelled for another child before turning back to me. “Mrs. Winters did say that you would be settling your half on your visit.” She forced a smile. It lacked warmth as much as teeth.
“Oh, right.” I took the money from my pocket and handed it to her. As I’d walked here, wages paid, I’d felt proud of myself for working so hard, for providing even a little for my daughter. But something about this exchange with Mrs. Buckley felt sordid and tawdry. As though I were renting my own child. How much of this money was going toward Faith’s care, really? Would it make any difference to that empty pot over the cold hearth? To her dirty clothes?
“How many children do you have, Mrs. Buckley?” I asked, as she counted the coins.
“Five boys,” she said. “And four girls from the home.” She glanced at my surprise. “But I love them all like they were my own, of course.”
I thought of the way she loved Daniel.
“Get a move on, Alice. We haven’t got all day!” Mrs. Buckley hollered down the hall. “And you’ve to get to the market for me, yet.” A young girl, about ten or so, appeared at the doorway half as dirty as the lad and twice as tall. In her thin arms she carried Faith.
Faith seemed as happy as ever, if not as clean. Not that I minded the dirt of childhood—hadn’t I let her get mucked up and grass stained on our last visit? But something told me this dirt was not from fun. Where Anna had tied Faith’s hair in a white bow, Mrs. Buckley had left it loose, uncombed, and Faith chewed on a piece of it as she tried to pick a button off Alice’s dress. She’d been fed at least, for some oatmeal had hardened in her hair and dried upon her cheek. Her white dress and cardig
an were replaced with a cotton smock, grey from being washed out and handed down one too many times.
“Did you not think to clean her face, Alice?” Mrs. Buckley raised the corner of her apron to her mouth and spit on it. She wiped my daughter’s cheek, much to my disgust and Faith’s, who squealed in protest.
“There now, pet,” Mrs. Buckley said. “Is that better?”
I’d only been a mother for a short time, really, but already the guilt of it weighed upon me. How could I have taken Faith from Anna’s care only to leave her here? Mrs. Buckley probably wasn’t a bad person, not if she’d passed the fostering interview; surely the Barnardo Home had their standards. But the truth of it was, she was as rough and weary as the hand-me-downs she washed. I’d spent my week’s wages to give my daughter this shabby life and, sadly, it was the best I could do. I felt guilty that Faith lived here, guilty that I’d taken her from the only woman she’d known as her mother. No doubt she pined for Anna. But most of all, I felt guilty that I couldn’t be the mother she needed.
But when Faith smiled and reached for me, none of that mattered.
FAITH AND I SPENT OUR FIRST AFTERNOON together on the boardwalk. All along the strand, families pitched parasols and beach blankets. Children waded, pants rolled to their knees, as they searched the shallows for shells or scooped buckets of water to fill their newly dug moats. I glanced at the other mothers calling in their little ones to gather round wicker baskets laden with sandwiches and flasks of milk. I’d come empty-handed. It hadn’t even occurred to me to bring a snack, a ball, or even a blanket. The excitement of seeing Faith, of having time with my daughter, had taken over my thoughts.
Next time. I stroked her head, smiling at the thought that there would be a next time. Many more next times.
We stopped to rest on a bench and I sat as Faith toddled about picking up pebbles and putting them in a row along the faded wood.
Unspeakable Page 17
