The Runaway

by Audrey Reimann

  At midnight the Scottish dancers entered. The girls, sashed in tartan over white dresses, slid on their slippered feet, spun and skipped to the haunting music. Their kilted partners held and turned them, looking proud and handsome in black velvet, lace and silver.

  Oliver noticed that Lucy had tears in her eyes. Bill had introduced his Scottish traditions to the clumsy English celebrations. How he would have enjoyed seeing Florence and himself celebrating their betrothal at his favourite festival.

  Servants slipped amongst the guests, giving each a glass of whisky to toast the New Year in the old Scottish manner.

  The dancers stopped. The great clock struck midnight and skirling pipers circled the ballroom. Then came the kissing of partners and neighbours and hands were joined for the playing of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ before the party really began.

  ‘A new year and a new life, Oliver.’ Florence toasted them, sipping the amber liquid swiftly, laughter in her eyes as she attempted to get the fiery drink down.

  Oliver drained his glass in one quick movement. He threw back his head; his eyes were alight with anticipation for the years to come. He placed his strong arms around his beautiful bride-to-be, lifted her high off the ground and kissed her soundly before the eyes of her family and friends.

  ‘Our future!’ he said.

  PART TWO

  The Moses Child

  1900

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Edward Wainwright, twenty years old, dark-haired and as handsome as his father had been at the same age, straightened his long back and looked up from his desk out over the tree-lined road. Laden branches of flowering peach swayed under the window. Through them he saw, to his great delight and amusement, his mother riding her bicycle.

  Dolly Wainwright wore knickerbockers of grey woollen cloth, a frilled blouse of white cotton and a large hat of yellow straw, tied on with a chiffon scarf. She pedalled away from the house, the machine rattling over the setts, disturbing the tranquillity of the summer afternoon. It was her fifty-fifth birthday.

  For three hours Edward had been writing, concentrating on the papers he had before him. To study ‘The Causes of Non-Obstructive Jaundice’ any longer would be useless. There were four weeks until the exams. He shook his pen on to the blotting paper, wiped the nib on a little inky square of felt, placed it in the wooden box and began to work his shoulders to unlock their set.

  Then he turned to look at Lizzie. She lay sprawled across the hearth rug of the room she had converted from their old nursery. A drawing board was propped against the steel fender and she jabbed at the paper violently with a stick of colour.

  Lizzie was tall and graceful, slim and vibrant, with hair the colour of copper, a fine straight nose and a wide, generous mouth. This afternoon her face was a picture; her mouth pressed into a firm line, clear forehead furrowed and her greenish-blue eyes a mere glint under drawn brows.

  She lifted her gaze from the jar of lilac blossom and her expression dissolved into a smile. ‘I’m trying to get the effect the Impressionists make,’ she told him. ‘Have you finished?’

  ‘If I don’t know it now I’ll never make a doctor,’ Edward said. He uncurled his legs, stood up and stretched long arms high above his head. For he was tall. At six feet four he was two inches taller than Oliver but he had his father’s features and was unmistakably a Wainwright.

  He tugged Lizzie upright. ‘Are you having second thoughts?’

  She dusted her hands over the crumpled dress of sprigged muslin and pushed back the unruly mop of hair, which had escaped from its tortoiseshell combs. ‘You could give it up and work for Oliver,’ she added with what Edward knew was a shade of hopefulness.

  ‘I’m going to be a doctor, Lizzie,’ he said firmly. ‘And I will be one in a few years’ time.’ It was inconceivable that he would not. But Lizzie and Mother had never really understood his vocation. They had always supposed that one day he would join his brother in the thriving industrial world of the cotton mills.

  ‘Even if I fail my exams I’ll not work for Oliver,’ he explained. ‘He’d want to give me an easy passage and too big a wage. I won’t take any more charity from him.’ He sat down again on his chair and looked at Lizzie with affection. ‘But I don’t think I’ll fail.’

  ‘You won’t fail, Edward,’ she said staunchly, ‘but you’ve chosen a difficult path. Oliver would pay for your training. You’re doing it the hard way.’

  Edward said, ‘It’s hard on you and Mother.’ He reached out and took her hands in his. He wanted her to know how much their support meant to him. ‘You sacrifice to help me; you pay for my books and clothes. I’m grateful. You know that. It isn’t difficult for me. It’s the only thing I want.’

  Lizzie’s face had a look of devotion. Neither she nor Mother thought their economies were a sacrifice. ‘We’re proud of you. Edward,’ she told him. ‘We don’t want you to feel any gratitude, though I wish I knew what made you want to take up medicine.’

  He let go her hands and smiled as she absent-mindedly tried to catch her loose hair and fasten it, while giving him her attention.

  ‘I’ll tell you. Do you remember Iris?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Do you remember Mother taking us to Liverpool to see her after she married?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you remember the street, Lizzie? The street Iris lived in. Do you remember all those poor people?’ He hoped she would understand. ‘Do you remember those children with spindly legs … and the pretty little blind girl who begged on the corner, turning her head and shaking her money bag when she heard footsteps?’ he asked earnestly. ‘Do you remember old men stooped from humping great loads at the docks?’

  ‘I remember,’ she said gently. ‘They used to frighten me. But doctors can’t make blind people see or straighten old men’s backs.’

  ‘I can help the children,’ he told her. ‘When I’m a doctor I can improve their lives. Some of those children work in factories. Factories like Oliver’s. They’re growing; they need good food and fresh air. They don’t see daylight from one week to the next. It’s wrong.’

  ‘Oliver doesn’t think it’s wrong,’ Lizzie said. ‘He had to work hard when he was young. He believes it’s the normal thing for poor people to do.’

  ‘He’s fair. He doesn’t employ children under twelve but Oliver thinks everyone’s capable of doing as he’s done. And they’re not. The strong and healthy have to care for the weak and sick.’

  ‘But he wants to help you, Edward. He wants you to accept his money.’

  ‘I won’t take any more from him. Mother’s got enough. And Dad left us two hundred pounds each. That was never touched. It’s worth over five hundred now. I have the interest off that and the bursary.’

  He stood up, touched her cheek tenderly and bent to brush his lips against the riot of copper hair. ‘I’ve enough, Lizzie,’ he said. ‘Oliver’s got his son and a baby daughter to support. I wouldn’t want them to think we were sponging; that we were taking anything that was theirs.’

  ‘He’s probably got enough problems with James, anyway, without our little worries,’ Lizzie said.

  Edward had not much interest in Oliver’s son. He had met James once when the boy was ten and Oliver brought him to Southport. Lizzie and he had found James to be such an aggressive child that there was no pleasure in his company. ‘Is Oliver coming today?’ he asked. ‘He usually remembers Mother’s birthday.’

  ‘Maud’s birth was difficult, his letter said. Florence didn’t find it easy after all these years. I don’t know if he’s coming over.’ Lizzie pulled at his hand. ‘Come on. I’ve spent the morning making your favourite scones. I like being economical. Let’s go down and make our own tea.’

  Edward led the way to the big, comfortable kitchen downstairs, past the framed photographs in the hall of Joe Wainwright, their father, and their older brother Tommy, whom they had never met.

  Tea was set at the long oak table and Edward picked up a scon
e and spread butter thickly; too hungry to wait until the tea was made. ‘You love all this, don’t you, Lizzie?’ he said. ‘All the making and baking. The household work. What they call “home management”?’

  Lizzie filled the teapot from the copper tap on the range, placed it on its tile stand and pulled a knitted tea cosy over it. ‘Yes,’ she laughed. ‘I’ll not campaign for Votes for Women or anything. I’m just a simple homebody.’

  ‘You are more than that, my sweet,’ said Edward. ‘You’re beautiful and talented.’

  ‘Edward!’ she protested, ‘I’m not. I’m a dabbler.’

  She was laughing at him now but he knew he spoke the truth. ‘Just remember all the things you do, Lizzie. You paint and draw – your pictures are all over the walls – look!’

  She put her finger to her lips, making him smile more broadly at her attempts not to let the two old servants in the next-door scullery hear the praise. She was blushing. He loved to give her confidence in herself. Lizzie made light of her achievements. He pointed to the three pictures on the walls. ‘Look – we don’t even have a cat, yet you’ve done a wonderful likeness on that one.’

  There was one of her still lifes over the door, above the velvet draught-curtain. He held out his buttery knife towards it. ‘And there – look at those oranges. You could eat them.’

  ‘Edward – stop it!’ She had put her hands over her mouth in the shy way he loved but her eyes were huge and shining.

  She needed praise, Edward knew. It was no use her protesting that she merely filled in her idle hours. ‘You are very artistic, Lizzie,’ he said seriously. ‘You love to sew. I bet you made the dress you’re wearing – didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And embroidered the new fire screen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And whose little sampler do I have on the wall of my London room?’

  ‘You don’t! Oh, Edward.’ She bumped down on to a chair. ‘I’ll do you a nice picture for your room. Why didn’t you ask?’

  He was enjoying himself, making her admit to her talents. ‘You get it from Mother,’ he pronounced. ‘She never had a chance to develop her gifts when she was young, but she had artistic ability.’

  ‘I always thought so, Edward. I wish she’d try something.’

  ‘She does – her cooking! And she buys lovely, outrageous clothes that only a woman with imagination could wear.’

  ‘Yet she thinks she’s so down-to-earth.’ Lizzie smiled.

  He cut a large slice of Mother’s fruit cake and let Lizzie fill his teacup again. ‘She is. Mother’s practical but hasn’t she made this house into a home filled with colour? I love coming home – seeing the changes she’s made.’

  ‘I know. She’s forever changing the rooms around. As soon as I do a picture or she buys so much as an ornament or fills a vase with flowers she rearranges everything to set it off.’ Now she was laughing with him. ‘And her friends, Edward! Some of those singers and dancers … !’

  ‘Will she be in for tea?’ Edward asked, all at once overcome with the realisation that he had eaten all but three of Lizzie’s scones. There were no chicken sandwiches left either and at least a quarter of the fruit cake was gone.

  ‘I expect so. She’s out cycling. She says if she does it for half an hour in the morning and the same at night she’ll get her tiny waistline back!’

  He grinned. ‘I saw her, half an hour ago. I’ve told her that middle-aged women of her build invariably become stout and she could better lose it by keeping to a reducing diet. But she’ll have none of it.’ He laughed now, remembering. ‘She said she’d rather add another pleasure to her life than lose one.’

  Lizzie put a hand to her mouth again so that the servants wouldn’t hear. Her eyes were full of suppressed laughter. ‘If only cycling didn’t give her such an appetite,’ she said. ‘She can’t understand where the weight’s coming from when she’s so active. But she can’t resist her own cooking.’

  ‘I suppose half the Variety turns will be here tonight, as it’s her birthday,’ Edward said, trying in vain to make what was left on the tea table look adequate. ‘We’ll have to put in an appearance at the table, I expect.’

  ‘I’ll cut more sandwiches if Mother wants some,’ Lizzie said, brushing his hands away from the plate. ‘We’ll eat with them tonight, then you can say that you have to work for your exams and I’ll make some excuse as well.’

  They heard the side gate slam, heard their mother’s quick feet on the steps outside before Dolly flung open the back door. ‘Put my bicycle in the shed, Edward,’ she panted. ‘I’m that hot!’ She dropped into the rocking chair, limp and red-faced. There was a sprinkling of grey in her hair, taming down the colour, and a few lines around her eyes and mouth but she did not look as old as some women of fifty-five, as she often told them. ‘I’m going to the Variety tonight. I’m bringing people back for my birthday supper so I’ll go and get ready soon. Top the pot up! Give your poor old mother a cup of tea!’

  Edward filled a cup for her and buttered a scone. ‘I expect you’re hungry, Mother,’ he said, avoiding Lizzie’s eye. ‘Go upstairs to change. I’ll put your bicycle away and bring this up to you.’

  ‘Thank you, love,’ she said, beaming at him. ‘Will you put my combs in when I’m dressed, Lizzie?’

  ‘Are you wearing your pink dress, Mother?’ Edward loved to tease her. ‘The one all splattered with beads?’

  ‘Yes. It’s my favourite. I haven’t worn it for weeks.’ She pulled herself to her feet and Edward followed her, carrying a tray of tea and scones.

  ‘Don’t eat all the fruit cake, Lizzie,’ he called. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

  Oliver’s hands on the neck of the stallion were as firmly in control of the animal as they were on the cotton empire he ruled. It was a fine May morning and he waited at the top of the moorland path for his son, James, to catch up with him.

  High above Suttonford House he watched the sun’s first rays flash on to its windows and light the surface of the ornamental lake, rousing a flurry of waterfowl. At forty-one his hair was as thick and black as it had always been; he was fit, the energy in his broad, powerful body had increased with age and he had an outlet for it, hunting in season and riding out alone most summer mornings.

  The stallion shook his head, knowing he was within sight of his stable. Oliver held him and looked over his shoulder. ‘Come, James!’ he said. ‘Don’t pull on the bit. You’re riding like an old woman.’

  James, now only a few yards away, had drawn his brow with a look of fierce resentment and Oliver recognised, as he so often did, that their only son had inherited little from Florence, but from his father both looks and temperament.

  ‘Don’t put that expression on your face,’ he ordered. ‘I know you didn’t want to come out this morning but for God’s sake do it with good grace.’ As James drew up beside him he added, ‘You’ll be back at school by tonight. Don’t spoil your last few hours.’

  ‘Father?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back.’ Hostility clouded James’s dark, handsome face.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I hate it,’ James replied. ‘I want to stay here. You sent for me.’

  ‘It was your mother who wanted you to come home to see your baby sister, not I.’

  ‘You didn’t consider it of sufficient importance then?’ James said in the arch tone of voice that so annoyed Oliver.

  Oliver tried not to show his exasperation. ‘When a man has only two children they are important,’ he replied.

  James’s face was a dark mask of fury. ‘Then why not listen to me? I’m your firstborn and I tell you, school’s a waste of time – and money.’

  Oliver was quickly losing such patience as he had shown. ‘I’m the one who decides on the waste, or otherwise, of your time. I pay the bills. Don’t tell me what’s best for you,’ he said brusquely. ‘Now go ahead. Stable your horse. I’ll see you at breakfast.’

  James dug his
heels into the bay mare viciously, making the animal throw back her ears before she pulled away in an excited canter. He turned her towards the moor and the road that led upwards into the Pennine Hills.

  Oliver’s anger was kindled by this show of ill-temper. He’d taught James to ride. He would not allow him to treat a good hunter this way.

  ‘Come back!’ he ordered. But James was beyond hearing, twenty or thirty yards ahead, kicking the mare savagely to spur her into action.

  Oliver tightened the right rein to turn Comet in the same direction and pressed his heels into the black stallion’s flanks. ‘Go on,’ he yelled, lifting himself out of the saddle, urging the powerful animal into a gallop as he leaned over its strong neck. ‘I’ll knock some sense into him this time.’ He kept his head well down as they chased, gaining ground on James.

  James was asking for trouble – he was insolent and this time Oliver’s own temper was roused. James would regret his behaviour. ‘Stop!’ he shouted over the pounding of hooves. ‘Pull up!’

  The path ahead divided, the left-hand fork going up to the hills, the right going down through the forest to the house. At the last moment Oliver saw James pull the mare on to the homeward track.

  Oliver reined in. He heard his son’s wild laughter ring out over the moor; he watched James slow his pace and turn to look up at his father. He would not follow him. He did not hear what James said – perhaps he was meant not to hear. But the mutiny was over. James would return to school.

  Oliver watched him go and wondered, not for the first time, on the different temperaments of his two sons. Edward, twenty years of age, who had been brought up without a father’s influence, believing Oliver to be his older brother, was clever and sensitive. He’d won a bursary to study medicine and was the finest son a father could hope to have.

  James, on the other hand, had had his father’s influence, love and attention, the best of education and a devoted mother and grandmother to sustain him. James had cultured manners, fine clothes and was indulged by the women of Oliver’s household in every whim. Yet he was wilful and arrogant and nobody, except Oliver himself, appeared to be aware of the fact.