A Mother's Choice

by Val Wood

  Is he making it up? she wondered. Or perhaps he’s used to that kind of festivity during the Christmas holiday. She thought of the many times when all the other theatre folk had gone home or to stay with friends and she and her son had made the best of whichever lodging house would take them in over Christmas. She had felt sorry for the older people who had shared their lodgings and eaten the same meagre Christmas dinner, and often wondered if the same fate awaited her.

  ‘Would you like to take a walk?’ he asked. ‘Or do you consider it too cold?’

  ‘I would like to walk,’ she said. ‘I need some air after being inside for so long. But I should take my luggage to Mrs Benson’s first.’

  ‘Let me carry it. We’ll drop it off on our way. I think it’s going to snow so we must make the most of the day before it does.’

  Having left her valise in the lodging house hall, at Giles’ suggestion they continued through Market Place, where there were fewer stalls than usual and not many customers buying, and on towards the pier, glad to be outside after being cooped up over the holiday. The sky was blue and almost cloudless but it was bitterly cold.

  ‘This has been the coldest year for years,’ he remarked. ‘They’re saying it could be the coldest winter ever.’

  ‘I’m sure that it is.’ Delia huddled further into her collar and shawl. ‘Perhaps the pier wasn’t such a good idea.’

  ‘A quick turn only,’ he said, ‘and then we’ll find a cosy tea house or coffee shop.’

  ‘This is our life, isn’t it?’ she murmured. ‘Or mine at least. Borrowing warmth from every possible source.’ She looked up at him. ‘Or perhaps it isn’t for you, Giles? It occurs to me that you might have known something better?’

  He paused, and then, taking her arm, he said, ‘And you would be correct. I have known something else, though not necessarily better. Certainly the company I have today far excels any other I have known in recent years, and I must add,’ he said hastily, for perhaps he felt her flinch, ‘I am no flatterer.’

  They turned away from the pounding waves on the estuary, which were plunging into the horse wash and dashing a surging swell of high water against the pier walls, and he steered her towards a small coffee shop in Queen Street. The window was steamed up so that they couldn’t see inside, but the warmth hit them as he opened the door and they claimed a table tucked into a corner where it would be free of draughts.

  ‘You might be full of good food from the Maritime, but I’m sure you can manage a pot of coffee or tea?’ he asked.

  ‘I can,’ she said, ‘and although I had a hearty breakfast, I could probably manage a slice of cake as well!’

  ‘I know most of the coffee shops in the town by now, and this one I might tell you produces delicious cakes.’

  She glanced at him surreptitiously as he ordered and wondered if he would expand on the statement he had made earlier. He didn’t seem aimless, as she thought she must appear, but rather he had an air of determination and confidence that appeared to tell the world that the way he lived was his choice and not a necessity. But she wouldn’t press him; she had always avoided any cosy unburdening of personal matters. He poured the coffee and cleared his throat.

  ‘I, erm, I thought that as you have given me the honour of your confidence over your personal troubles, it is only right that I should reciprocate with my own.’

  ‘Oh, but you need not,’ she broke in quickly. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to.’

  ‘I’d rather like to,’ he said calmly, ‘because at some time in the future you might find I have gone off on business of my own somewhere, and you might perhaps wonder where.’ He put down his cup and turned to her, speaking softly. ‘We have known each other for only a short time, Delia, but I have come to value our friendship, for such a thing is rare between a man and a woman unless there is the prospect of something more.’

  Delia nodded. He was quite right, and she had had a similar relationship with Arthur Crawshaw, except that he often disappeared from view without feeling the need to explain, nor she to ask why or where he had gone.

  ‘I’m comfortable with our friendship,’ she said. ‘I make no demands on you.’

  He took a sip of coffee. ‘I know. But I would like to tell you that I hired a cab yesterday morning and was driven to York.’

  She raised her eyebrows in astonishment and he gave a wry smile. ‘It cost me a lot of money during the Christmas festivities, but it was necessary. I went to visit my wife.’

  Delia drew in a breath and covered her mouth with her hand. Her first response was to flee, but he lifted appeasing hands and said, ‘If I might explain?’

  She took up her cup and found her hands were trembling. She had no romantic aspirations towards him, but this might alter their friendship.

  ‘My wife and I were married when we were very young, at the expectations of both our families,’ he began. ‘Neither of us wanted it, but we had such pressure from them that unwisely we gave in. She was in love with someone entirely unsuitable in the eyes of her family, whereas I wanted to continue with my musical education, which was only possible if my father supported me, which he agreed to do if I married Marion, the daughter of his best friend.’

  He lowered his voice. ‘Our marriage was and is in name only and a source of unhappiness to us both. She continues to see her lover and I … well, I completed my music studies and after a few years decided that the best thing for me to do was join an orchestra and travel, which gave us both a chance to live our own lives, unhindered by each other.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Delia breathed. ‘And she lives in York?’

  ‘She does, in our family home, except that we have no family. I don’t usually see her over Christmas, but in the New Year we visit both sets of parents together, to give our marriage a veil of respectability. However,’ he went on, ‘I received a message asking me to call as she was unwell and needed to discuss certain issues, which is why I visited her.’

  ‘Is she very unwell?’ Delia asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. She has unexplained illnesses from time to time. She is still a relatively young woman but she appears fragile, though whether or not she is I can’t determine. I feel that it is our situation that makes her ill. She complains now that she has a sickness and is convinced she is dying.’

  He put his chin in his hands and gave a deep sigh. ‘I have an uneasy suspicion that she might be carrying a child.’ He sighed again. ‘And it isn’t mine.’

  ‘And the issues she wished to discuss with you?’

  ‘Well, she wishes me to spend more time there, and to inform our parents that we can’t travel to see them during the New Year because she is ill.’

  ‘She could write to tell them that,’ Delia suggested.

  He gave a grimace. ‘She can be a cunning minx. She knows it will be believable coming from me. Her parents know her very well, my parents less so. I believe that when she asked me to spend more time with her it was her way – if in fact she is expecting a child – of showing that it will naturally appear to be mine. And it most certainly is not!’

  Delia gazed at him. ‘Yet if there isn’t any proof that she is carrying her lover’s child, it will be natural for everyone to think it is yours. Your only hope is that you are mistaken. It seems unlikely, doesn’t it, after so many years, that she would now conceive a child?’

  They were both silent for a few minutes, and they were brought fresh coffee and biscuits. It was as if the woman who served them realized they were in serious conversation. Delia gave her a warm smile as she thanked her.

  ‘And so what will you do?’ she went on.

  ‘I don’t know what to do. If she’s expecting a child and I deny it is mine, she will be classed as a fallen woman. If I accept it, I will be expected to bring up a son or daughter I haven’t fathered.’

  ‘What tangled lives we lead.’ Delia shook her head dejectedly. ‘We’re like actors in a play, or characters in a book. And yet …’ She paused. ‘It’s real life and it can be trag
ic or sad, comic and – unbelievable.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Robin felt sad when the day came for the girls to move to the other house, but he kept busy, helping to pack bags and crates into the wagon, sitting on top of them with Louisa as Jack drove the short distance round to Foggit’s farm, and then passing them down to Jack and Aaron when they pulled up in the yard where the agent was waiting with the keys.

  It was a long, low, boulder-and-brick house with a pantile roof facing the estuary. Off the large kitchen, which had a range and a stone sink, was a short staircase to the first floor where there were three bedrooms. It had a scullery similar to Peggy’s and a parlour behind the kitchen. At the end of the building a barn was attached and behind it, across the back yard and set apart from the house, were a privy, a pigsty and a cowshed; beyond that a paddock, a kitchen garden and a large field for livestock.

  Over the fence was a smaller field where two goats cropped round a stunted apple tree. By the fence a short-haired terrier-type dog was barking frantically and hoarsely at them. A woman with a shawl over her head stood at the door of a rundown cottage, shouting at the dog to come in, but it took no heed.

  ‘Who lives there?’ Robin asked Louisa. ‘That’s a very noisy dog.’

  ‘It’s Mr Deakin’s house,’ she said, her voice low. ‘That’s Mrs Deakin calling the dog. You’re best not speaking to them, Robin. All ’bairns in Paull are scared of them.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘They just are. Mr Deakin’s a fisherman but he doesn’t talk to any of ’other fishermen and he doesn’t like bairns. That’s what Grandda says, anyway.’

  ‘Have you just got one grandfather and granny?’ It had struck Robin that there was only one set of grandparents helping with the move.

  ‘No, Ma’s mother and father are our grandparents as well, but we don’t see them much, cos they live ’far side of Hedon. Ma takes us sometimes and they give us a penny, or a bonbon.’

  Peggy and Susan arrived in the trap with boxes and bedding, bringing the other children along for the ride. Robin and Louisa followed them into the house.

  ‘You’d best light a fire, Jack,’ Susan said when she put her nose inside. ‘It smells damp.’

  ‘It’ll not be damp,’ Peggy remarked. ‘It’s not been empty that long. It’s just a bit cold, that’s all. There’ll probably be kindling and logs in ’barn, and you ordered coal, didn’t you?’

  Jack ignored Susan’s request to make a fire; the agent had gone and he and Aaron were bringing in the heavier furniture like the kitchen table and benches; Robin carried in a box and Louisa did too.

  Peggy looked up. She had no intention of making a fire. She decided that Susan’s lessons in homemaking should begin immediately. She began to unpack a box of saucepans and put them on a low cupboard shelf. ‘I’ll leave these here, Susan, and you can put them wherever’s best for you when you’re ready.’

  Susan ignored her. ‘Jack, are you going to mek that fire? It’s freezing in here.’

  ‘Fetch some kindling in, then,’ Jack said. ‘Did you bring some paper or old straw to start it?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ she answered sharply. ‘I’ve been busy, in case you haven’t noticed.’

  Peggy banged down a heavy pan, her resolve failing. ‘Look, you finish unpacking and I’ll mek ’damned fire, and when I’ve done that I’ll nip home and bring a pan of stew. That’ll save you having to do anything for supper.’

  She put on the coat she’d just taken off and her rubber boots and went out to the barn, bringing back kindling, a small bundle of dusty straw that she’d gathered up from a corner, a few logs and some pieces of coal, and within minutes a fire was blazing in the range.

  Peggy was livid as she went home, not driving but going out of the gate and climbing the fence into their property and muttering to herself about the inadequacies of her daughter-in-law. Contrary to what Susan had said, she didn’t consider that the younger woman had stirred a finger for this move apart from stripping their beds to take the sheets and bedspreads with them. ‘And those are my sheets if everybody had their own,’ she raged.

  She carefully packed the casserole dish into a box, wrapped a loaf of bread that she’d made fresh that morning and put that in as well. ‘I’ll not have those bairns going to bed hungry,’ she muttered. ‘And I suppose I’d better make ’beds up whilst I’m about it.’

  When she got back, Susan had filled the kettle and put it on the fire, which was now burning steadily. Aaron had been into the barn and brought in a basket of logs, then returned to fill an old bucket with coal that the Foggits had left behind.

  Peggy put the casserole in the side oven. It was only just warm, but she knew it would be hot enough by the time they were ready to eat.

  As the afternoon drew on, Jack and Aaron carried the beds and chests of drawers upstairs and she made up the beds for the children, but not for Jack and Susan; that was something that Susan could do herself, she decided.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Robin and Molly, you’d better come home with me. We’ll tek ’trap and Grandda can bring ’wagon back later.’

  ‘I’m stopping here tonight,’ Molly told her. ‘I want to sleep here in ’new house.’

  ‘We haven’t made up a bed for you,’ Susan said abruptly. ‘I thought you were stopping with Gran.’

  ‘Not tonight I’m not,’ Molly said inflexibly, without looking at her mother. ‘I’ll go back to Gran’s tomorrow.’

  ‘She can sleep in my bed with me,’ Louisa offered. ‘I expect you want to know what it feels like, don’t you, Molly? You won’t have to mind being at ’bottom of ’bed, though.’

  ‘Will you mind your own business, miss,’ Susan snapped. ‘Nobody asked for your opinion.’

  ‘She can stay if she wants,’ Jack interrupted, coming inside with a box of crockery. ‘She doesn’t want to be left out, do you, Molly?’

  ‘No I don’t.’ Molly pressed her lips together determinedly. ‘If I like it here I might stop wi’ other bairns.’

  Susan heaved a deep angry breath. ‘Well, don’t anybody bother to ask me.’

  Peggy glanced from one to another. ‘All right, honey,’ she said to Molly. ‘Come and give your gran a big kiss, all of you. I’ll see you sometime tomorrow, won’t I? You all know where we live.’

  ‘Course we do, Gran.’ Molly put her arms round Peggy’s waist. ‘You won’t be lonely wivout us, will you? You’ve got Grandda and Robin to look after you.’

  Peggy was choked as all the little girls came to give her a kiss and said they’d see her the next day, and then Emma and Rosie shot off upstairs to their shared bedroom and the next instant Molly did too. Only Louisa stood with doubt written on her face.

  ‘Bye, Gran,’ she said quietly. ‘Bye, Robin. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Peggy kept her eyes firmly ahead as they drove down the track and Robin didn’t speak. He guessed that she was upset at leaving the girls behind and he was too; he’d have to read to himself now and he’d enjoyed reading to the girls and acting with funny voices. He knew he would miss his mother more now that there would be fewer interruptions.

  I’ll do a batch bake, Peggy thought, enough for two families; just until they get settled in, though it’s time that Susan and Jack learned about their own family life. I’ll prove some bread tonight and mebbe mek a couple of apple pies; I should have given Susan some apples. She decided to send some over the next day, but as they pulled into their yard she recalled that she hadn’t much sugar left for baking.

  By the time she’d put Betsy in her stall and come into the kitchen, Robin had filled the kettle and put it over the fire.

  ‘I thought you might like a cup of tea, Granny Peg,’ he murmured.

  ‘Aye, I would.’ She smiled. ‘That’s thoughtful of you, Robin. There’s nothing quite like a cup in your own home, is there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, and there was a catch in his voice. ‘I’ve never lived in my own home.
My mother and I have never had one.’

  She sat down on a kitchen chair and drew him towards her. ‘Well, consider this one yours for ’time being,’ she said softly. ‘Until such time as you feel you want to move on, and there’s absolutely no hurry at all to do that.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I’d like that very much.’ He paused, and then added, ‘I expect you’ll feel rather lonely without the girls here.’

  ‘Yes, I think I might, so it’s a good thing that you’re here, isn’t it?’

  He brightened up considerably. ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

  ‘Well,’ Peggy glanced out of the kitchen window and saw that it was not yet dark, ‘there is, as a matter of fact. I was going to bake but I’ve realized I haven’t much sugar.’

  ‘Oh, I can go to the shop for you,’ he said eagerly. ‘I’ve always been very useful at running errands and I’m very quick.’

  ‘It will take ten minutes to run there and ten back, so if we allow half an hour you’ll be back easily before it turns dark. You won’t dawdle, will you, or go near the slipway?’

  ‘Oh, no, I promise,’ he said. ‘I’ll just put my coat and cap on. Was that all you wanted? Just a bag of sugar?’

  ‘Yes, please.’ Peggy reached for her purse to give him the money. ‘And here’s a penny extra for you to buy something for yourself; do you like aniseed balls or liquorice?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I do.’ He handed back the penny. ‘But I don’t need a reward, thank you.’

  She took back the coin and smiled. ‘All right, off you go then. You know which shop I mean, don’t you?’

  He put on his cap. ‘Yes,’ he said, and headed for the door. ‘I won’t be long.’

  He wants to repay me, she thought, and looked out of the window as he went out of the gate and carefully shut it after him. What a well brought up child he is. His mother did well in spite of the circumstances she found herself in. Poor girl. She must miss him.

  Robin ran all the way down the track towards the village and vowed that he’d try to get there and back within the twenty minutes. I won’t even stop to look at the river. But as he reached the road he saw it in front of him and noticed that today as the light was fading the water looked leaden and forbidding, the white crests dull and subdued rather than frolicsome as they had been when he had last been down here. Gulls were flying low, close to the surface.