But what would this mean for the child … to be brought up by a succession of paid helpers … to have no proper home … to be stigmatised as the illegitimate son of a marketeer? No. His son must have better than that.
He could marry. But he knew, with the thought, that he could not take a woman to himself for any other reason than that he loved her. And what if Rosie came back for her son? What if she tried to claim him? She had every right, since the child was illegitimate. Had his love for Rosie turned to bitterness? No. But he could not bear to lose the child as well.
He discovered that he could not contemplate the idea that the child might be returned to his mother. If the child had been of their marriage then he, as the father, would have absolute rights. Mothers, legitimately married women, had no rights over their children, he knew that. But Rosie was not his lawful wife.
Fear came to him at the thought that he could lose his son. He must make it impossible for Rosie to claim him. If she returned for the child he must be sure that she would not be believed in her assertion that she was his mother. So – who knew that she was the mother? Iris knew.
Iris’s silence would have to be bought. The midwife knew, but she had flown, back to Manchester, the day after the birth, afraid she would be blamed for Rosie’s desertion. Rosie had no friends here. She had never left the house. No doctor had been called.
He must find a woman who would care for the child as her own, here in the house where he was born. His son must have a normal life, the proper home that he, his father, had never known.
There was only one woman who could do it, only one woman with so little to lose that she would gladly leave her old life behind. Only one woman who, in spite of her shortcomings, had absolute loyalty. There was only one woman who bore the name of Wainwright. Dolly.
Leach had never married his stepmother. Dolly’s name was still, legally, Wainwright. If she would register his son as her own – live here in Southport – then he, Oliver, would come at weekends as he did now – they could conceal from everyone the fact that the child was not Dolly’s.
His son would have a birth certificate with the name of Wainwright upon it. The child must never know that he, Oliver, was his father. He would assume the role of the child’s older brother.
Wasn’t there a story in the Bible about a child who was cared for by his own mother, but who knew her as his nursemaid? His son would be cared for by his father and know him as his brother. It had been done before. He thought the biblical child was Moses.
He went into the hall for his coat. There was just enough time to catch his trains and be in Middlefield before anyone had missed him.
Suttonford station, constructed since he had left the estate nearly five years before, was deserted but for a uniformed man who collected the tickets at the gate. There was no sign of Wilf in the little goods yard and Oliver made his way to Hollinbank unobserved.
A bitter wind blew across the bare fields he had last crossed in the heat of August. Now he kept to the path where ice glazed the brown, stagnant water lying in deep-rutted cart tracks. Snow had fallen overnight in a thin layer and drifts settled into the margins of the winding lane.
Smoke billowed from the chimney above the familiar cottage. He hoped to find her alone. Had Wilf Leach left the estate? He’d seen him often, in Middlefield, drunk in drunken company. Sir Philip Oldfield didn’t give his workers time or money for that kind of living.
What would she think of his proposition? He knew that Dolly would ‘keep her counsel’ even if she refused to help him. She had never been a gossip and he knew his secret would be safe with her.
He thought it strange that nobody was working on the land. Even in the worst of winter weather there were jobs to be done, gamekeepers ferreting, men cutting wood, the gravel drive to be raked daily. Sir Philip kept them all busy when he was in residence. Perhaps the family was away. Oliver ran the mile to the cottage. The fewer the people who saw him, the fewer the questions asked. He was gasping for breath by the time he reached the house.
‘What brings you here?’ Dolly said, the moment he opened the door. ‘It’s got to be summat serious. You’ll not be paying a social call.’ She carried on shovelling ash from under the fire, making no pretence of being pleased to see him. A tiny girl played at the table with a heap of clothes pegs, humming to herself, not turning her head to look at Oliver directly but peering sideways from under the mop of ginger curls she had inherited from her mother.
‘Where’s Wilf?’ Oliver closed the door behind him and looked around the room that had once been his home. It was even shabbier and smaller than he remembered. The paint was a dingy yellow where it still clung to the rough plaster walls; the unvarnished furniture was marked and cracked. Dolly had never shown interest in home-making, but it was clean and the child looked well fed and healthy. ‘Is he still working for Sir Philip?’ he asked.
‘No. He lives in Middlefield with that harlot from the village.’
‘Stop shovelling ash, Dolly. Sit down and listen to me.’ He took off his overcoat and warmed his hands at the fire, smacking them together and turning them in the heat. The child began to cry.
‘It’s all right, Lizzie. It’s only your Uncle Oliver!’ Dolly picked her up and held her over one hip. ‘Or is it your big brother? I don’t know how you’re related to him.’ She set the child down in front of the fire.
‘We’re not related at all,’ Oliver said. ‘She hasn’t got a drop of Wainwright blood in her. And neither have you.’
‘Well, what does that make me then? I married your father before our Tommy was born. He’s not a bastard!’ Dolly said defensively. ‘I’m not going to stand here and be insulted. And if you and our Tommy are brothers you must be related to me – at least related by marriage!’
‘Sit down, Dolly, I’ve something to tell you.’ He’d get straight to the point. They could be arguing for hours about relationships. Dolly couldn’t work these things out for herself. He sat down heavily on the wooden settle and stretched his legs towards the fire.
‘I’ve got a son, Dolly. A baby son, not a week old and no one to care for him.’ It was going to take an effort to ask her what had to be asked. ‘I know you’re not my mother but you are family. And family’s better than strangers. I want you to look after him!’
‘Like father, like son, then, is it? Where is she? The mother? Is she dead?’ Her voice was as sharp as ever.
‘No. She’s gone back to her husband. Left the baby with me.’ Oliver would not tell her more. Dolly need not know everything.
Dolly placed her child back at the table. ‘You want to bring him here then?’ she asked casually, as if it were an everyday occurrence.
‘No.’ Oliver tried to judge from her tone of voice how she’d taken the news and if she would accept his plan. If he’d been dealing with a trader, a businessman, he could strike a bargain. But Dolly? Women? Women never jumped in the expected direction, though she had everything to gain from it.
‘What do you want?’ Her arms were folded like a washer-woman’s as she waited.
‘I want you to live in Southport. I have a house there. A house much better than anything you’ll ever get for yourself. I’ll pay for everything. You need have no worry about that. I’ll put money in the bank for you. A year’s money at a time and enough for you to pay for a maid and a woman for the rough work.’ He spoke in a low, earnest voice and saw that she had taken him seriously.
‘Me? Me with a house and a maid?’ Dolly was taken aback for once. ‘Me? In another woman’s house?’
‘It’s not another woman’s. You’ll be in charge.’
‘What if she comes back? What happens then?’
‘She’ll not come back. The hardest part for her was leaving us in the first place,’ he said bitterly. ‘She’s abandoned my child and she’ll never see him again. I’ll have him registered in the name of Wainwright as soon as I’ve got a name for him and that’ll settle that. She’s lost all rights. She can’t claim him if you
’ll agree to my plan.’
Oliver looked now at the child who had jumped from the chair and played on the peg rug at her mother’s feet. He wondered at the ways of women. He did not understand how Rosie, so gentle and loving, could desert her child, yet Dolly, hard and calculating Dolly, could care so well for her own and even care adequately for another woman’s.
He looked down at the rosy-cheeked child whose vibrant colouring was the more noticeable against her drab dress. There was not a trace of her father’s coarseness in her and it was hard to imagine Wilf having had any part in her procreation.
‘But I’ll not have Wilf Leach in my house,’ he insisted. ‘You’d have to go back to your old name. Call yourself Dolly Wainwright again. You see, Dolly, I’d have to ask you to register the child in your name, as if he were yours.’ He looked intently at his stepmother. ‘We’d be breaking the law, claiming that you were his mother, but I want to keep him. He’ll never know I’m his father. He must think he’s yours. You aren’t married to Leach, are you?’
‘I’m still Dolly Wainwright,’ she replied quietly, as if confessing a guilty secret. ‘Wilf never did marry me. I called myself Mrs Leach to stop the neighbours talking.’
‘Then the child is Elizabeth Wainwright?’
‘Yes.’
‘Has she got a birth certificate?’
‘Yes.’
‘With just your name and hers?’
Dolly appeared to hesitate for a moment; she was holding something back.
‘Well?’
‘I put your father’s name on the birth certificate. I didn’t want her to be illegitimate. I didn’t want her ever to know that Wilf Leach is her father. I shouldn’t have done it. I was scared they’d find out but nothing happened. Nobody asked. She’s got Joe’s name on her birth certificate, same as you and our Tommy. He wouldn’t have minded, Joe wouldn’t. He was a good man.’
Oliver interrupted her, ‘Show me the birth certificate.’
She went to the wooden settle and lifted the lid. It was here she kept her treasured belongings. She took out a long envelope and handed it over. Inside were her marriage certificate, his father’s death certificate and, next to it, to his amazement, a certificate of birth.
‘Elizabeth Wainwright,’ he read. ‘Mother: Dorothea Amy Wainwright. Cook. Father: Joseph Edward Wainwright. Quarrier.’ It was signed by the registrar, dated and stamped.
‘They didn’t ask?’ he said, looking hard at Dolly. ‘Didn’t they check? Did nobody ask to see the father? Did you take the baby with you?’
‘No. I just went in, told them lies—’ she confessed. ‘I went in in me best clothes, so they wouldn’t recognise me, just in case. But there was nobody there that knew me. I was going to run for it if they challenged me.’ She managed to look crestfallen and defiant at the same time.
‘Then you can do it again, Dolly,’ he spoke sharply. ‘We’ll put him down as yours and Dad’s. He’ll be legitimate and when the children grow up and ask questions we can tell them Dad died just before he was born.’
She got to her feet and looked down at Oliver as she said, in her normal aggressive way, ‘You’re not in a position to do all the demanding, are yer? It’s your kid as needs a mother!’
She went to the window and looked out. Oliver waited for her to speak. From his side it appeared a good solution for both of them. He asked himself what she had here; an empty life, no man, only her poor wage to keep herself and her child. She had no protection if illness struck.
Yet she was an obstinate woman and he could not be sure of her response; not until she agreed. Then he’d be sure. There was great loyalty in Dolly that would be brought to defend all she had charge of. But would she do it? She was a good-looking woman. Perhaps she hoped to marry again. ‘Could you live without Wilf? Live respectably and not find another man?’ he asked her.
‘I’d not need a man. Not if I had enough money. I’ll be glad if I never see Wilf Leach,’ she replied, still with her back to him. ‘I never want to hear the name of Leach again.’
She turned and walked towards the fire where she leaned against the mantelshelf, her head cocked to one side in the mannerism he knew so well. He didn’t think she’d refuse the offer. There were no signs of prosperity in her clothing or the furnishings of the room, but it was impossible to know what would sway Dolly. Her expression gave no clue to her thoughts.
‘I’ll settle two hundred pounds on each of them, yours and mine, and we’ll tell them it came from Dad,’ he said. ‘It will be good for him to have a companion as he’s growing up, like I had in Tommy. I’ll never treat my child better than yours. Elizabeth will be a big sister to him.’
‘You’re asking a lot. You want me to put a lie on the birth certificate for you; bring the child up. What if you get married?’
‘Dolly! For God’s sake don’t talk rubbish. I’ll never marry.’
He had to do something, offer her something now to sway her. ‘If you do this for me we’ll have it all made legal. The house and all that will be yours. Yes, yours! In your name! I’ll have the child brought up the way I want and, in that, you must do as I say. He’s my son. I’ll come to the house as often as I can. But I don’t want you to tell a soul here, at Suttonford. No word must get about. As far as they’ll be concerned Dolly Leach and Lizzie Leach will have gone.’
There was a moment’s pause before he repeated, ‘Dolly and Lizzie Leach will have left the estate and no one will know where they have gone.’ She was hesitating. ‘You’ll be the widow of Joe Wainwright; Mrs Dorothea Wainwright and her daughter, Elizabeth Wainwright. In Southport nobody will ever know you as anything else,’ he told her.
He saw that she was nearly there and pushed her, as he did with the men he dealt with. ‘Well? Will you do it? I have to have an answer before my train leaves.’
‘I’ll do it,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll pack our stuff up and you can carry it to the station with you. Me and Lizzie’ll be at The Pheasant tomorrow morning.’ The old sly look crossed her face. ‘You’d better give me some money for the train – and a carriage from the station. Lizzie can’t walk all that way in the cold.’
‘What about the Oldfields? You can’t tell them where you’re going.’ The last piece in the jigsaw had not yet been placed. Oliver would not have his son’s existence revealed to the Oldfield family, or have them trace Dolly.
‘Haven’t you heard?’ Dolly looked surprised. ‘Sir Philip Oldfield was thrown from his horse last week when he was out with the hunt. The village has never stopped talking about it. He’s in a wheelchair. Crippled. They say he’ll never walk again. They won’t be wanting three cooks any more. I don’t think there’ll be much entertaining done at Suttonford.’
Oliver sent Dolly to the registry office in Southport, to put Dorothea Amy Wainwright down as the mother’s name and Joseph Edward Wainwright as the father. It proved just as easy here as it had been in Middlefield to give false information. Nobody asked to see the baby.
He would think of him as his Moses child, but Oliver called him Edward, after his own father and Cromwell to link his son’s name to his. ‘Edward Cromwell Wainwright,’ he read proudly when she returned with the certificate. ‘Don’t start calling him Teddy. That’s my first rule. Push him out every day in the baby carriage; rain or snow. And make sure that the Marsden woman is feeding him well. I won’t have her child fed first and Edward last.’
His bag was packed for his return to Middlefield. There were a few last-minute instructions to be given before he went back to his old life. At the moment he was not needed here. In a month he’d come over to see that all was well with his son.
‘Buy some clothes for yourself and Lizzie. There’s a woman in the next street who sells hats. Get yourself a hat or two and some for Lizzie. You’re not in the country now. In Tulketh Street there’s a registry office for servants. Go down there tomorrow. Engage a woman for the washing. You’ve got Iris to help you with the children. You’ll do the cooking yourself. There’s
money in the bank for you and you can spend a bit getting yourself smartened up. There are good dressmakers in the town. You’ll find their names in the paper.’
This advice, he knew, would be taken with alacrity. Dolly already had fallen in love with the town and to his great amusement had begun to give herself airs, to talk of how she would run ‘her’ household. He pulled on his leather gloves, pushed one hand deep into the pocket of his overcoat, lifted the bag and inclined his head towards the door so she’d open it for him.
‘If you have to get a message to me, go to the station and give a letter to the stationmaster. He’ll see I get it the same day. If there’s nothing to worry about don’t bother me. I’ll be back in a few weeks’ time.’ If he ran, he could be at the station in five minutes.
‘Oh yes! Anything else?’ Dolly asked with a fair attempt at sarcasm. He knew she wanted to show him that she was in charge. ‘Surely there’s something more I can be doing in my spare time?’
He turned as he reached the gate. The old temptation, the old habit he’d had of having the last word with his stepmother suddenly and mischievously reasserted itself. His parting words to her, which he delivered with a cheeky grin were, ‘Aye. You could maybe learn to act like a lady! I’ll pay for your lessons!’
If it hadn’t been for the fact that the neighbours might hear, Dolly would have thought of a good rejoinder. This time she was going to be looked up to and respected, not looked down on like she’d been in the village. Neither would she be at everyone’s beck and call.
She was still a good-looking woman and, if she did as he asked, she could make more of her life than she’d done so far. A child or two wouldn’t take all her time. Mrs Dorothea Wainwright she’d be known as. ‘Dolly’ was too common a name for a woman with a house of her own, a maid and a woman to do the rough stuff. She’d never dreamed he had a house like this. He must be doing well.
She’d been round the town, looking at the shops. There was money in the bank to spend and plenty to spend it on. Edward was a contented baby and she was going to ‘bring him up proper’, just as she had with Oliver and Tommy, only this time she’d have help. She’d make sure she got good help too; none of them lazy creatures the big house had tolerated.
The Runaway Page 23
