A Mother's Choice

by Val Wood

  He took a deep breath and muttered, ‘God knows what Susan’s going to say about it. She’ll mek my life unbearable.’

  Delia gave a wry grimace. ‘Serves you right,’ she declared.

  They went back inside and Delia waited in the scullery whilst Jack went through to face his parents and sister. She leaned on the stone sink and looked outside through the small paned window at the yard where she had disclosed the truth of what had happened all those years ago. Beyond the fields lay the estuary, a deep wide turbulent highway carrying barges, ships and fishing boats, and a fleeting thought came to her that her father might be out there on one of them. The thought was followed by another: she did not care if he were alive or dead.

  Then she heard the sound of someone sobbing. It was Jack, and she took a heaving breath and went to join them in the kitchen.

  Peggy stood holding Jack wrapped in her arms and they were both crying; Aaron sat stony-faced in his chair with Jenny perched on the chair arm with her hand gently patting his shoulder.

  As tears flooded Delia’s eyes, she realized that now wasn’t the time to ask if Robin could stay. His presence might cause even more conflict within the family; loyalties would be divided, and no matter that Jack had said he would make it up to her for the difficulties she had gone through, his commitment must be to his wife and children.

  As she stood, uncertain of what to say or do, the scullery door opened and a voice asked, ‘Is anybody at home?’ Delia turned to see a woman who she guessed was Susan, who glanced at her and then at Jack, blowing his nose and obviously distressed, standing next to his mother.

  Her lips turned down and she folded her arms in front of her. ‘Just what is going on? Is this something I should be privy to, or am I excluded?’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Jack muttered to Susan that they had to go home and he would tell her there what had happened.

  Susan glanced at Delia and nodded as they left; they hadn’t been introduced and it was clear that Susan had no idea who Delia was, although her gaze passed over her curiously as she asked Peggy to send the children home when she was fed up with them.

  Jenny got up from the chair arm and went to the scullery to fill the kettle to make more tea.

  Delia cleared her throat. ‘Should we catch the earlier train, Jenny?’ she ventured quietly as Jenny came back and hooked the kettle over the fire. ‘Perhaps enough has been said for one day.’

  ‘No!’ Peggy, sitting by the table with her fingers clasped tightly together, answered for her daughter. Her thick hair had become tangled and hung in unruly curls across her forehead and around her cheeks. ‘Let’s talk this through now.’ Her voice was hoarse. ‘No use leaving it for some other time; we need some sort of – idea of what to do next. A plan.’

  ‘Aye, we do.’ Aaron got up from his chair, his stupor receding and a look of determination forming in his expression. He went to Peggy and patted her cheek. ‘Come on now, honey; let’s get a grip on this situation.’ Then he turned to Delia, who still stood in the middle of the room, wondering what to do and whether or not to sit down. Was she going to be rejected for the second time in her life?

  ‘I’m going to speak for ’rest of my family,’ he said, ‘especially that blackguard who is my son.’

  Delia’s blood ran cold and Peggy looked up at her husband in alarm.

  ‘It behoves me to apologize for what’s gone before,’ he said soberly. ‘We brought our Jack up to be a caring young man, to be kind to others, to do and be done by ’same as he would expect from other folk. Or so we thought. But it seems …’ He drew himself up straight and took a breath. ‘It seems that we didn’t mek a very good fist of it; we failed somehow to learn him. In fact we failed miserably.’

  Delia hurried into speech. ‘Mr Robinson, it was a long time ago. He was young and impetuous; he didn’t kill anybody and I haven’t come for revenge.’

  He looked across at her; she had interrupted his flow and he was unsure of how to continue. ‘That’s all very well, but we have to mek recompense somehow.’

  ‘You’ve already done that,’ she said softly. ‘You took my son, a boy you didn’t know, and kept him safe in your home.’

  ‘Aye, well,’ he murmured. ‘We’d have done that for any youngster to keep ’em from harm.’

  Delia nodded. They would, she understood that, and she felt a tightness in her throat at their kindness to a child they hadn’t known was their blood; and I, she thought wretchedly, I did wrong by just leaving him with people he didn’t know.

  ‘Come and sit down, Delia.’ Peggy patted the chair next to her. ‘Kettle’s boiling, Jenny. Mek tea and bring ’biscuits out of ’barrel, would you?’ Her voice was hoarse after her weeping and Delia guessed that she would be worrying about what was happening between Jack and Susan. ‘We might not resolve everything today,’ she went on, ‘but mebbe we’ll mek some headway.’

  ‘Mrs Robinson,’ Delia began, ‘I didn’t come with the intention of causing trouble.’ Inside her head, she could hear her former self, the shy insecure Dorothy, contrite and apologetic and taking the blame for any mishap, even when not of her making. She sighed out a breath to dispel the image of that young girl. She had gone; she was no more. ‘I came to thank you for looking after my son, and to say that I couldn’t wish for better grandparents for him.’

  ‘So does that mean that you’d be happy for us to continue looking after him?’ Aaron chipped in; he seemed close to tears. ‘For a bit longer at any rate?’

  ‘Cos we’d like to,’ Peggy added. ‘It would break our hearts to watch him go and never see him again.’ She pressed her handkerchief to her nose. ‘Cos he’s a grand little lad.’

  Delia swallowed, and wondered how it was that Peggy and Aaron had both come to the same conclusion, for it didn’t appear to her that they had had any discussion. Perhaps that was what happened when two people had had a long and amicable marriage: each understood the other’s needs and intentions.

  Jenny silently poured tea and took the lid off the biscuit barrel. She had kept very quiet and seemed quite shaken by the turn of events. Maybe she’s not quite as brave as she makes out, Delia thought. Perhaps she hadn’t realized the impact the disclosure would have on her brother; they were very close when they were young, Delia remembered. Jenny had said some harsh things about him and his wife, but perhaps now she regretted them.

  Silently, they drank their tea, Peggy topping hers up again from the teapot, and then Jenny said quietly to her parents, ‘You’ve agreed that you’d like Robin to stay with you, and I think, Delia, that you’d be happy with that?’

  Delia nodded, unable to speak, and Jenny continued, ‘So do you think that before making any final decision, you might like to find out what views Jack and Susan might have?’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Susan asked as she and Jack crossed the yard and unfastened the gate that led on to Foggit farm; they had unanimously agreed to keep the name as everyone local knew it as that. Jack and Aaron had created a pathway from cracked old stone and rubble to make it easier for the children to walk across the grass if it were wet or muddy when going between the two houses. Eventually, Aaron and Jack had decided, they would open up some of the joint fields to make better grazing for more sheep and pigs.

  ‘Let’s wait till we’re inside,’ he muttered. ‘There’s a lot to say.’

  ‘Who was that woman? Was it Robin’s mother?’

  There was a long pause until he managed eventually to say, ‘Aye, it was.’

  ‘Really? She’s not as I expected,’ Susan said. ‘I thought she’d be – well, disreputable, a bit of a slattern, you know?’

  ‘I don’t know why you’d think that; the lad was clean and tidy and well-spoken when he first came.’ Jack took off his boots as they entered the kitchen and gazed round. It looked cosy; the fire was glowing in the range and there was a good smell coming from the oven. Susan had obviously prepared food before coming over to find out when he was coming home.

 
She shrugged. ‘Yeh, but she left him, didn’t she? Left her son with complete strangers.’

  ‘Except that we weren’t.’ He flopped down into a chair by the fire and Susan thought pensively how like his father Jack was, with similar mannerisms and habits.

  ‘What?’ She was opening the oven door and had only loosely grasped his comment.

  ‘I said that we weren’t. We weren’t strangers. Delia knew us. She used to live in Paull.’ Jack put his hands to his head and closed his eyes.

  She came and sat opposite him. ‘What’s up, Jack? Why were you and your ma so upset? She was crying.’ She gazed at him, and then leaning forward she took his hands away from his face. ‘And so were you,’ she whispered. ‘What’s happened? You’ve got to tell me.’

  He clenched his eyes shut and took a shuddering breath. ‘You’re never going to forgive me, Susan, but you’re stuck wi’ me till death us do part, isn’t that what we promised?’ He opened his eyes, which were red and swollen, and Susan looked away, unable to meet his gaze.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ His words were choked. ‘I was young and stupid and I didn’t really know you well back then, afore we married, but I knew Delia, Dorothy as she was then, and – I took advantage of her.’

  ‘What you talking about?’ Her voice rose. ‘What do you mean you didn’t know me well? We had—’ She stopped, hesitating as if not knowing what to say. ‘You took advantage of her? What’s that supposed to mean?’

  He stood up and began to pace about. ‘It means that cos of my actions – my callous behaviour – that young lad, Robin, whose real name it seems is Jack, is my son.’

  Susan sat in total silence, as if struck dumb, and then suddenly stood up and went out of the kitchen. Jack heard her running up the narrow stairs and into their bedroom overhead. He could hear her pacing.

  I’ll pay towards his keep, he thought as he sat down again. Delia’s had to manage alone all these years; how has she coped, looking after a child and having to find work to pay rent and put bread on ’table? Unless – he was struck by a thought – has there been another man in her life? Mebbe one who doesn’t want her son around any more so she decided to off-load him? But then he dismissed that idea. She wouldn’t have brought him all the way from London, or wherever they were living, and just left him in the way that she did. He didn’t seem scarred at all; he was a well-adjusted lad, and didn’t he always say that she would come back when she could, as if he was totally sure of her? And, he thought again, she wasn’t to know that we’d be in the Sun Inn that day.

  Then he thought of his parents; had they suspected something? Did Ma put two and two together? Delia said that she’d come to our place when she’d found out she was pregnant. She’d be in a state, I expect; she’d not have had any sympathy from her parents. Davis Deakin is nowt but a bully, everybody knows that, and his wife … well, who knows what she’s like, for nobody ever sees her.

  He heard Susan’s footsteps on the stairs and she came back into the kitchen. She looked pale and shaken but she’d brushed her hair and tied it into a bun at the back of her neck. It looked nice like that, he thought.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, but she just gave a shake of her head.

  ‘Can you be sure?’ she asked. ‘She’s not just looking for somebody to blame?’

  He grimaced and huffed. ‘I’m sure. Would she have waited ten years? And ’timing is right; he’s not far short of Louisa’s age. Besides, I remember it clearly and I remember how ashamed I was afterwards. She was frightened, poor lass.’ He looked up at her. ‘Not like you,’ he said. ‘You weren’t frightened.’ He paused. Quite the opposite, in fact; it was Susan who had made up to him, enticing him just as Ralph Pearce had said that girls did.

  Susan licked her lips. ‘I was frightened,’ she said, ‘but not for ’same reason. I thought you might reject me.’

  Jack frowned. She’d been eager to kiss and cuddle and then offered more, and he couldn’t believe how lucky he was. It was his first time, but it was unexpected and awkward and not quite as marvellous as he’d been led to believe, and Susan seemed in a hurry for it to be over and done with. It was not long afterwards that Dorothy happened to come by and he was tempted because Susan hadn’t come back as she’d promised. At least not until later, when she came to tell him she’d been caught and was expecting and he’d have to marry her.

  ‘We’ve had our ups and downs, Jack,’ Susan’s voice cut into his thoughts, ‘but I have to say I’m shocked. I thought I’d married ’perfect man, which you are in your ma and da’s eyes.’

  ‘Not any more,’ he said grimly. ‘I’m right at ’bottom of ’barrel now.’

  ‘Well, once you were,’ she said impatiently, ‘and I was ’girl who’d led you astray, so in a way it’s a relief to know that you’re not perfect after all, but just as weak and flawed as ’rest of us.’

  He got to his feet and took hold of her hands. ‘I’ve never considered that I was perfect; I’m just an ordinary man trying to get through life without mekkin’ too many mistakes.’

  Susan looked him in the eyes. ‘I’ve something to tell you, Jack. If we’re to make our marriage work without hating each other, we’re going to have to be honest with one another.’

  ‘I thought I was,’ he said miserably. ‘To my shame I’d forgotten about Dorothy – Delia. I never gave her a single thought after ’first few weeks when I was racked by my conscience; she was ’sort of girl who blended into ’background. I think she must have been frightened of her own shadow, poor lass.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t honest and I tricked you,’ she said softly. ‘Like Delia I was terrified, but in my case it was of being found out.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He frowned. ‘How did you trick me?’

  ‘With Louisa. She isn’t yours, Jack. Her father is Ralph Pearce.’

  Fear showed in her eyes, but relief too, and it was as if a cloud had lifted. ‘That swine! He told me he loved me and forgot to mention that he was already engaged to be married to someone else; someone more suitable, from a better family than mine. When I told him I was pregnant he said he couldn’t get out of it, that ’banns had been read. He suggested that you might be a good proposition, that you were gullible and wouldn’t guess, and that’s why I came to you. I was so frightened of my parents finding out. So I’m sorry too. I’ve lived in fear these last ten years that you might guess, or that Ralph Pearce might boast about it.’

  Jack swallowed and then nodded. ‘I think I’ve always had a feeling that Louisa might not be mine,’ he murmured. ‘That first night with you, I didn’t know what I was doing; it was my first time and I did wonder afterwards how I’d managed to father a child, and I knew that you used to see Ralph Pearce. So I was afraid to love her to begin with. I thought that one day if you were given ’chance you might leave and take her with you.’

  ‘Why would you think I’d do that?’

  ‘I thought you still cared for him. And she looks like him,’ he said. ‘Dark eyes and hair. Nothing like me. And he used to turn up sometimes and give one of his sneaky grins as if he had a secret. I thought that if he clicked his fingers you might go running to him. Then, when we had the other bairns, I reckoned that you wouldn’t leave them all.’

  ‘I’d never have done that,’ she whispered. ‘How could you think such a thing?’

  He shrugged. ‘I was scared, I suppose. I thought I was second best.’

  She licked her lips. ‘We’ve both made mistakes.’

  ‘Aye, we have. Is it too late to …’ He looked pleadingly at her.

  ‘Put things right? No, I don’t think so. Can you forgive me? I’m more to blame than you and I’m really sorry.’ Her eyes were moist and her words unsteady.

  He had never seen her like this before; she was always full of bravado, always quick to find fault. ‘Let’s not talk about blame.’ He reached out to hold her. ‘We’ll have a fresh start. An honest one.’

  ‘Yes.’ She put her head on his chest. ‘I’d like that. And shall
we tell your folks, just so that they know everything? Mek a clean breast of it.’

  ‘Aye, I reckon so. Just one thing, though. What do we do about Robin?’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Delia, Peggy and Aaron continued to discuss the situation. Jenny had not interrupted again after her suggestion that Jack and Susan should give their views.

  ‘But we want Robin to stay more than ever,’ Peggy said, and there had been more tears when she’d added, ‘especially now that we know he’s ours.’

  ‘And you must come whenever you want to, Delia,’ Aaron said gruffly. ‘You must think of this as home. We realize that you won’t be wanted at ’other place so we’ll not include them, but that’s their loss.’

  Delia had always wanted such a home, one where she would be sure of a welcome, and the idea of it took some getting used to. She had lived an itinerant life, hand to mouth sometimes when the theatre engagements were few, always knowing that what she couldn’t provide in her rootless existence was constancy; yet what was remarkable was that in spite of their lifestyle Robin had turned out to be adaptable and well balanced and seemed to be happy.

  ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ she said tearfully. ‘But I think that Jenny is right. First you should hear what Jack and Susan have to say.’

  Aaron had shaken his head and said that it wouldn’t make any difference, but when Jack and Susan did return Delia went into the parlour and sat with the children whilst the family talked. It was a warm and cosy room, with a log fire and squashy chairs, and books and games scattered over the carpet.

  Rosie sidled up to her and leaned on her, then teased her fingers through her dark hair. ‘Robin’s ma,’ she said plaintively, ‘we’d like Robin to stay wiv us. We play good games when he’s here.’

  ‘Yes, but you don’t live here any more,’ Molly broke in crossly. ‘You live in your own house, so Robin’s my friend not yours.’