The Child From Nowhere

by Freda Lightfoot

  Ever since she’d been widowed when her husband Charles had taken his own life because of insurmountable debts, she’d been supported by his brother Eliot and Tyson’s Shoes. Kate herself had been responsible for ensuring Lucy’s very generous allowance was punctiliously paid each and every month while Eliot was away at war. It was meant to permit her to live in comfort, covering necessities such as rent, food and general living expenses. But it surely did not run to the kind of elegant clothes Lucy chose to wear, nor to keeping the French maid she insisted on having.

  Kate didn’t care to think what debts her sister-in-law had already acquired, or who would be responsible for paying them off.

  She said nothing now as Lucy settled herself in the wing-backed chair set between the two sofas. She was almost purring with self-satisfaction, smiling at everyone around her with the kind of serenity that spoke of supreme confidence in her own feminine ability to manipulate a situation to her advantage. Lucy certainly did not give the impression of a woman shamed, a woman with something to fear. Kate felt chilled to the bone just watching her.

  ‘It feels so lovely to be home again,’ she simpered. ‘Though I’m not quite sure what the occasion is, or why I’ve been summoned.’

  Kate bit back the comment which sprang instantly to her lips, that Tyson Lodge was no longer Lucy’s home. But how could she say such a thing now that the master himself had returned and was the one who’d invited Lucy here? Kate glanced up into Eliot’s face, carefully shuttered and inscrutable, and then across at her son.

  Callum had adopted his favourite position, propped against the mantelpiece. Flora was seated on the corner of the sofa nearest to him, her fingers nervously pleating the fabric of her frock.

  Neither so much as glanced in Lucy’s direction and Kate’s heart went out to them both. Something inside her seemed to swell with outrage at seeing her own children so cowed, so swamped in misery.

  Eliot cleared his throat, looking very much the commanding officer about to issue a damning indictment upon his troops. But his eyes, Kate noticed, did not appear to be entirely focused, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.

  They were fixed somewhere in the past. He’d seen dreadful things: limbs blown off, holes punched into his men. When would the sick feeling leave his belly? When did one grow accustomed to senseless slaughter? He doubted one ever did. No wonder his boys had sometimes lost heart, but cowards had to be winkled out and dealt with. There was no room in a war for lead-swingers and liars, for those incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions, their own failures.

  He had always taken his own responsibilities seriously, very seriously indeed, for the sake of the well-being and safety of the entire company. And as it was in the army, so it would be in civilian life. The same standards must apply.

  ‘We’ll deal with Callum last. Flora, come here, child.’

  Without having planned to do so, Kate found she was on her feet. ‘This outrage has gone on long enough! Sure and you cannot expect my children to speak freely while Lucy is present. It’s intolerable. An abomination. Utterly unfair, so it is.’

  Eliot came and put a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her back down in her seat. ‘Maternal hysteria will assist no one, Kate. Let us all remain calm, shall we? I’m sure this entire business is no more than a trivial misunderstanding which can easily be cleared up.’

  ‘Trivial misunderstanding? I don’t believe what I’m hearing, why I ...’

  ‘Kate, please. Do attempt to remain calm in front of the children.’

  And Kate was forced to subside, as if she were the guilty party.

  Flora was staring up at her father in startled dismay. She had Kate’s fair complexion, lightly freckled, but Eliot’s gloriously dark, chestnut brown eyes to match her dark brown, wavy hair, marking her out as a Tyson from the moment of her birth. No milk-sop baby blue for her. A pert chin and snub nose now showed her as a beauty in the making for all her schoolgirl, leggy awkwardness. Flora got up from her seat and stepped forward in answer to his summons and stood before her father, her gaze fixed on the toes of her shiny buttoned shoes.

  ‘Tell me truthfully, Flora. Did your aunt here, who apparently cared for you while your mother was working hard, running both businesses because I was away at the war, ever do anything deliberately to hurt you? Come, you can speak freely. Tell me the truth.’

  Flora cast a quick, sideways glance across at her mother and Kate was up again in a flash, aching to rush to her side. Only the condemning light in Eliot’s eyes and Aunt Vera’s hand on her elbow, persuaded her to sit down again. Nevertheless, she persisted in making her point. ‘How can she speak the truth with Lucy sitting there?’

  ‘Please do not interrupt again, Kate, or I will have to ask you to leave the room. This tribunal – er – investigation, must be conducted fairly and properly.’

  He could still hear the sounds of gunfire and bombing popping and cracking in his head, the sound of men screaming for their mothers. He could name every shell. Besides the whizz-bangs, so called for obvious reasons, there were sling bombs; hand grenades; trench mortars: the most deadly of all, and even oil cans filled with high explosives and any rubbish the enemy could pack into them. The entire area had been pitted with dugouts linked together by the infamous trenches, running with water and infested with vermin, so that your feet rotted where you stood, assuming the rats didn’t gnaw your toes off first.

  This house, this genteel life his womenfolk had lead in it while he was away dealing with all of that, even Callum’s bare existence in the farm in the Langdales, was paradise by comparison.

  ‘Flora has nothing to fear. I am her papa and will take good care of her. I am a man of honour and integrity, and expect any child of mine to be likewise. It is required of every Tyson, bred in us from birth.’

  Kate felt herself shrink, knowing she came from no such grand family, that honour was something she and Dermot had never even considered, survival being everything to them.

  ‘Now speak up, child. Has your aunt Lucy ever lifted a finger to hurt you? No, no, do not look at your mama, look at me. Tell me truly. Has she?’

  Flora heard the rustle of her aunt’s dress, could smell the over-powering perfume she wore which brought back so many painful childhood memories: nightmares even. Of being pinched on her tummy and smacked very hard on her bottom, of being made to march backwards and forwards with her arms raised, of being left out in the rain, forced to eat eggs which she hated and made her ill.

  She’d tried once to explain her misery to Kate but her mother either hadn’t understood or didn’t believe her, telling her to be a brave little soldier, that they all had to do their bit. Adults never believed a word you said. Only Callum had ever truly understood, but then he had good reason.

  The silence seemed to go on interminably, and then it was broken. By Lucy herself.

  ‘Of course she will say that I smacked her. All children need discipline from time to time, and she was subject to the most dreadful tantrums. Kate spoiled her, you see, out of guilt for leaving the child to her own devices while she took on your role, Eliot. Understandable perhaps, for the situation was extremely difficult, as you will appreciate.’

  She sounded so reasonable, so calm. Kate could feel herself start to shake, itched to run to Flora and gather her darling child in her arms, but Eliot’s hand was once again firmly pressing down upon her shoulder.

  ‘I appreciate how difficult it must have been for you, Lucy. Indeed, we all suffered in our various ways, some more than others. Well now, Flora. Is this true? Did you have tantrums? Answer me now.’

  Tears were rolling down Flora’s cheeks. It was as if she were back there in her room and Aunt Lucy was telling her to get dressed, or undressed, or make up her bed, and the buttons wouldn’t work in her small chubby fingers, or the sheets kept slipping off the bed, and every time she failed to obey an instruction, a ringing slap would strike her. The same words she heard so often then seemed to echo in her mind now.


  ‘You are so very naughty, no wonder your mammy neglects you and doesn’t love you any more. You are going to have to learn better manners, or nobody will love you ever again.’

  Flora whimpered even now at the memory. ‘No,’ she mumbled, her voice barely above a tremulous whisper.

  ‘What did you say, child?’ Eliot persisted. ‘Speak up so that we can all hear you.’

  ‘No. She didn’t touch me.’

  ‘There you are,’ said Lucy with great satisfaction. ‘Didn’t I tell you!’

  Chapter Seventeen

  The remainder of the investigation seemed very much a foregone conclusion. Callum was treated to a similar grilling to Flora, called upon to explain himself and present evidence of his claim against his aunt. Of course, the poor boy had none, other than a young child’s sketchy recollections of a traumatic incident.

  Lucy wept a good deal, sighing and dabbing at her eyes with a lace-trimmed handkerchief, throwing agonised looks at Eliot in an overt plea for sympathy. It was, Kate had to admit, a skilled and polished performance.

  ‘So you have no real evidence. Neither the Brocklebanks nor the Union Workhouse can name the person who brought you to them that day?’

  ‘No,’ Callum mumbled.

  ‘It could quite easily have been some right-thinking person who found you, a small boy of five at the time, wandering alone in the streets.’

  ‘It was Lucy.’

  ‘You think it was Lucy, but you have no real proof that it was. Isn’t that correct?’

  Silence.

  ‘It could very easily have been another lady, who was simply trying to be kind.’

  Callum’s face was tight with anger. ‘It were her.’

  ‘You were known throughout that period as Allan?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘But if Lucy herself had taken you, why would she give the wrong name?’

  ‘To cover her tracks. And she beat me, just as she did Flora.’

  ‘We have already heard from Flora herself that Lucy never touched her. I put it to you that you told Flora to accuse her aunt of causing the bruises that day, to deflect the real blame from yourself.’

  ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘Tell me, boy, why exactly did your aunt abduct you and apparently put you in the Union workhouse? For what purpose? What did she hope to gain by such a cruel act?’

  At this point, Kate felt unable to keep quiet any longer. ‘I think I can explain that point. She did it out of revenge. Callum had usurped the place of her own children in your affections, robbing them of their inheritance, as she saw it.’

  For a second Eliot appeared discomfited and confused, a frown creasing his brow as he attempted to sift through the fog of his memory. Had he disinherited Lucy’s children? He really didn’t think so. But when had he last adjusted his will? Was it after Callum went missing, or before? It was all so long ago he couldn’t quite remember. So much had happened since.

  His leg was throbbing from standing on it for so long this morning and he longed to sit down and relax. He’d take a glass or two of whisky perhaps with his lunch, to numb the pain.

  Pain. It was a small price to pay for his life.

  The Medical Corps must have come to stretcher him out, risking their own lives in the process, for he’d found himself in a hospital ward. At least, he’d thought that’s what it was. It turned out to be a clearing station for the wounded, little more than a huge tent, eerily dark and as close to hell as you could get without actually going there.

  He brought himself back to the present with a jerk and glared at the boy in front of him, for a moment struggling to put a name to him, to remind himself of the object of this enquiry.

  Ah, yes, lies and possible cowardice. The boy was blaming Lucy for his own childish foolishness, and naturally Kate was supporting him, looking for any motive Lucy might have, however unlikely. This was beginning to sound more and more like a tale in a penny dreadful.

  The odour of death had been everywhere, that sickly sweet stink of rotting flesh, not quite disguised by an overlay of carbolic soap. There were sobs and moans and sounds of crying all around him; the injured being carried back and forth on stretchers, some with red tags on their feet, labelling them as not worth trying to save.

  ‘Eliot?’

  Kate’s voice was coming through the mists of memory. Eliot mentally shook himself. He focused upon her lovely face with difficulty.

  ‘I might have disapproved of Lucy’s predilection for over-spending but I’ve always made a point of providing for her and her children ever since my brother died. And she was well aware that I would continue to do so, although obviously the factory would go to Callum, my adopted son, in the fullness of time. Lucy was aware of that too. Were you not, sister-in-law?’

  ‘Of course, who else?’ Lucy replied, with saccharine sweetness.

  Eliot rubbed his leg, tried to ease it into a more comfortable position.

  They’d needed to operate on it right away, to save it. Just before he began, the doctor had told him that he’d run out of anaesthetic. The agony of those long, pain-wracked hours on the operating table would be carved forever in Eliot’s mind, although it probably didn’t take anything like that long. He was one of dozens dealt with that day.

  ‘Isn’t the truth of the matter, Callum, that it was all some sort of silly prank, childish naughtiness that went wrong? You ran away because no one was paying you any attention that day, and in the way of all children who get lost, you blamed us, your parents, for losing you, and worse, for not finding you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Now you’ve latched on to Lucy here as a convenient scapegoat, because if she had carried out this heinous crime, we again would have to share some part of the blame because we never noticed her involvement. In fact, you’d rather anyone took the blame for those missing years than yourself. You are simply a cowardly boy, an adolescent filled with resentment, isn’t that the truth of it?’

  No!’ Callum almost shouted his reply this time.

  By some stroke of good fortune, or medical skill, Eliot had managed to avoid infection and lived to tell the tale. But he would never forget the screams of those who didn’t survive, the blinded men begging for water, the horrific burns, the missing limbs and the disfigurement of his comrades. No room in that tent for cowards. This boy didn’t know how lucky he was to have escaped all of that.

  Eliot had made up his mind. ‘I think we’ve heard enough.’

  Lucy was exonerated and was to be allowed to move back into Tyson Lodge.

  Flora hid away in her room, refusing absolutely to come downstairs and welcome her aunt, no matter how much Eliot might exhort her to do so. Callum too was noticeable by his absence.

  The little girl was distraught, sobbing that her darling papa did not believe a word she’d said. Kate cuddled and reassured her, trying to explain how her papa was not quite himself; that later, when he’d had time to consider the matter more closely, he would surely change his mind.

  He certainly would if Kate had anything to do with it. Not for one moment would she risk allowing that woman anywhere near her children in future. ‘He’ll come round to believing you, sweetie, I promise.’

  ‘But it’ll be too late then, won’t it, Mammy? Lucy will already be here.’ Flora’s big brown eyes gazed at her in deep distress and Kate’s heart clenched. How was she going to protect her child?

  ‘Sure and she’ll not lay a finger on you, not with Daddy and Mammy both here. She wouldn’t dare. You’re quite safe, my angel, don’t you fret. Now why don’t we put some rags in your hair, then you’ll have ringlets in the morning? Make you look even prettier, shall we, my darling?’

  But Flora shook her head, not in the mood to be pacified by such blandishments. It took some time, and at least two stories being read to her from her favourite Hans Christian Andersen Storybook, before Flora settled for the night.

  Concerned that the outcome of this uncalled-for investigation would only make Callum�
�s resentment against his father worse, Kate hurried along to her son’s room. Finding it empty, she frantically searched the entire house and gardens, finally locating him in the summer house at the furthest end beyond the rose garden. It was the sound of sobbing which alerted her some moments before she reached him. Kate hung back, hoping it would cease, not wishing to embarrass her proud, sixteen-year-old boy.

  When the sound had eased to quiet sniffles, she called out his name. ‘Callum, is that you? Are you there, m’darlin’?’ By the time she reached him, he appeared quite composed, his dignity intact.

  Kate put her arms about her son and hugged him tight. ‘Wasn’t that the most dreadful thing? You mustn’t blame your papa too much, m’cushla. Hasn’t he had a worse time in the army than we’ll ever know or appreciate? I’ll talk to him, so I will. Make him understand.’

  ‘He never will.’ Callum carefully extricated himself from her embrace, embarrassed by this display of motherly affection.

  ‘He will so, given time. Not everything can be solved in the blink of an eye, not in this world. We need patience, to be sure. Won’t Lucy condemn herself, given time? No, no, don’t look alarmed, I don’t mean I’ll let her harm either one of you, ever again. I mean, simply by her own difficult, selfish behaviour. Won’t he soon remember how very mean and manipulative she can be? We only have to watch and wait, and he’ll soon come to see the truth, mark my words. Now will ye walk yer mam back to the house and I’ll make us both a mug of hot cocoa?’

  ‘I’m not a child, Mother, to be mollified by such treats.’

  Kate looked at her over-serious son with deep love reflected in her gaze. ‘Don’t I know it? And wasn’t I robbed of all those precious years, just as you were robbed of your childhood? We can never get that time back but we must make sure that the future remains bright. We must make very sure of that.’