The fact that it was not half so severe as the one her brother had received was of little consolation. After being upbraided she was sent to bed and received no food for the rest of the day. Her stomach gripped by pangs of hunger, she was forced to exist on the aroma of onion gravy that drifted up from the kitchen.
Upon retiring later, Joe came in to sympathize, perching on the edge of the bed she shared with Mims and Doris, ready for flight should his stepmother come. ‘I wanted to sneak some apricot pie up, but Mrs Trump’s stuck pins in it.’ This was one of Eliza’s evil ploys to deter theft, only she knowing where the pins were hidden. ‘But you can have this.’ He took from his pocket what looked like a flat dried banana.
Thanking him, Beata seized the locust pod and devoured it.
Joe watched her, casting the occasional nervous eye towards the landing in case he was discovered here. ‘Where were you off?’
‘Bolton Percy.’ This was where Aunt Nelly lived.
‘You should have told me. I’d have covered for you.’
‘I didn’t want anybody else to get into bother,’ Beata told him, before donning a look of confusion and lamenting to her brother, ‘It’s obvious she hates us so why doesn’t she just let us go?’
Three years older, Joe had guessed the reason. ‘She gets a pension for us till we’re sixteen. If we go the money stops.’
On hearing of such mercenary purpose, Beata’s expression changed from one of despondency to resolution. ‘Well, I don’t care how much she clouts me she’s not going to stop me running away. I know if I can just get to Aunt Nelly’s and tell her what’s going on she won’t send me back.’
Joe posed a salutary question. ‘Our Gussie must have told everyone how mean Eliza is; why have none of them come to rescue us?’
Beata thought about this. ‘Gussie doesn’t really know how bad it is.’ None of them had wanted to spoil their sister’s visits by revealing the depth of the cruelty. Besides, it was not something one wished to talk about; if Eliza discovered they had been complaining she might be even worse.
‘Why not go to Aunt Ethel’s? It’s nearer.’
‘She frightens me,’ admitted Beata. ‘Why don’t you come too?’ It might be easier with an older male to navigate.
Joe turned his blue eyes to the ceiling and shook his auburn head. Unwilling to tell her he was too afraid of the consequences, he pretended that he could cope with the ill treatment better than his sister. ‘She doesn’t bother me. I’m out at work all day.’
‘I’ll come,’ piped up Mims.
‘You’re only seven, it’s too far for you to walk.’
‘Am I seven now?’ Mims frowned.
Beata nodded. Her sister’s birthday had passed without a card nor even a birthday wish from their stepmother.
‘Don’t leave me, Beat,’ came the little girl’s fearful plea.
Beata gave consideration to this. Such a companion would seriously hamper her escape. But then if she went alone and was successful in her bid to reach Bolton Percy Eliza might take it out on the ones who were left behind and Mims, being the smallest, would suffer most. She placated the troubled infant with kind words. ‘All right, we’ll go tomorrow while the weather’s still nice.’ And she would put a lot more effort into it this time.
* * *
Setting off as if for school, and taking the money that Eliza had given them to buy their lunch, Beata and Mims embarked on the dusty road north.
Unusually compliant today, Mims put every ounce of her determined nature into the hike, uttering not one objection until midday when the hot sun finally wore her down. Praising her sister for lasting so long, Beata led her under the shade of a tree and told her to remove the tight elastic garters that held up her socks. Then, taking off her own socks she rubbed the red imprints on her legs, before unpacking the loaf of bread and bottle of water from the haversack that she had borrowed from Joe and the two sat down at the roadside to slake their hunger and thirst. Too afraid to ask for a lift from passing vehicles in case they were captured, they scrambled behind the tree to hide each time one passed. After half an hour they set off again, black socks sagging round their ankles.
Travelling eleven miles that first day, they finally reached Hatfield where Beata said it would be safer if they bedded down for the night under a hedgerow.
‘There might be crawly things!’ Thoroughly exhausted, Mims’ good behaviour had started to wane.
‘I warned you there might be! You said you’d put up with them.’ Beata spread her own cardigan at the bottom of the hedge. ‘There, lie on that. I shall have to send you back if you don’t behave.’
With great reluctance, Mims did as she was told. But as soon as darkness began to fall her imagination ran riot. ‘Beat, there’s a hearwig crawling in me lug!’
With no chance of being allowed to sleep, Beata sighed and hauled her sister to her feet. ‘Away then, nuisance, we’ll have to go into that church down the road.’
Picking bits of hawthorn and grass from their clothes and hair, they had just settled themselves on one of the pews when Mims heard a noise and her voice bounced off the stone walls. ‘A ghost!’
‘Shush!’ Beata clamped a hand over the little girl’s mouth but it was too late; following the sound of echoing footsteps, a male face peered down at them.
‘Who have we got here then?’ asked the sidesman.
Jumping to her feet, a dismayed Beata told the church official their names.
‘You’ve run away, haven’t you?’ He looked stern.
Standing in the shadow of the rood, Beata could not bring herself to lie and merely nodded.
Not bothering to enquire why, asking only where they had come from, the sidesman made a decision. ‘Well, it’s too late to take you back tonight. You’ll have to stay at my house till I can contact your parents.’
It did not matter that they were to be treated with great kindness by the speaker, nor that his wife tucked them into bed after a delicious supper and read them a story along with her own little boy. The runaways’ only thought was that they were going to be sent back to Eliza’s clutches.
* * *
The next morning, informed of his sisters’ whereabouts, Clem cycled over to take them home.
Perspiring from his activity, he shook his fiery head at them in exasperation. ‘Why do you keep doing this, eh?’
Beata lowered her gaze, wondering how he could remain so blind to their stepmother’s cruelty.
Mims was not so reticent. ‘’Cause she keeps braying us.’
‘And no wonder! If you didn’t misbehave so much, all of you, she wouldn’t have to. Eliza’s trying her best to be a mother to you but you’re always complaining. If it isn’t about your clothes it’s about what’s on the table! You’re both going to have to buck your ideas up. Now come on, let’s have you home.’ Lifting Mims onto the crossbar of his bicycle, and telling Beata to straddle the luggage rack behind him, he pedalled as best he could towards Denaby.
Their homeward journey taking much less time than when they were on foot, it was still an uncomfortable ride, made worse by the knowledge that there would be retribution at the end of it. Over the miles this dread magnified to such a pitch that, once within sight of home, Mims started to cry.
Sweating, Clem fought to keep his bicycle on an even route, failed and put one foot to the ground to steady him. ‘Look! If you promise to behave in future, not to run away again, I’ll tell Mother I’ve already given you a good hiding. Do you promise?’
Still snivelling, Mims nodded, Beata doing the same.
‘Thank you! Now can we just get home without any more ructions?’
True to his word, Clem spoke up the minute he was through the door, telling Eliza they had already been beaten.
Still, she had words of admonishment. ‘And what about the money they took with them? That’s stealing, that is!’
Beata dared to object. ‘But you gave it us to buy our lunch, Mother.’
A wallop was to acco
mpany the rebuke. ‘I didn’t intend for it to make your running away easier! And the fact that you weren’t coming back is another form of stealing. You were robbing me of the pension I get for you living here!’
Fearing there was going to be a scene, Clem ordered the girls into the yard. ‘Outside till bedtime!’ Thus, for once they were spared harsher punishment.
It was of little comfort.
* * *
Resigned to the fact that a successful escape would be impossible with Mims in tow, and not wanting to leave her behind, Beata was hitherto compelled to rely on vicarious means of escaping the awfulness. On Saturdays, after the chores were done, she would pelt up the stairs of Mexborough Library and in this quiet oasis would browse the periodicals that she was forbidden to read at home, devouring lurid stories in last week’s News of the World whilst simultaneously imbibing the classical music that wafted up from the dance class below.
Once the papers had been read, there were shelves full of lovely books in which to lose herself, books on foreign travel being her favourite, depicting mountains and beaches and rainforests so vivid that, even after the tomes had been replaced and it was time to go home, she was able to fix the contents of the pages in her mind, carry them with her, so that later in her bed she could travel to these distant lands again – China, India, Australia – until dawn brought the reality of another day.
Besides the books there were human friends to take Beata’s mind from the abuse at home, wealthier friends whose parents were kind to her and would invite her into their garden to play. It had occurred to Beata that they might help in more useful ways and she had tried dropping hints about her hunger and unhappiness, but these had passed unnoticed, or been misinterpreted as a request for some bread and jam, which was generously handed over. Welcome as this might be, short of condemning Eliza outright – which was unthinkable for one so terrified and helpless – her real dilemma was to remain a secret.
Or so she assumed. In fact, suspicion had arisen amongst Beata’s neighbours over the nervous manner in which the Kilmaster children regarded their stepmother, though they restricted their condemnation of Eliza to black looks for now.
‘I’m sure she’s being cruel to them,’ muttered Fanny Gentle to Mr and Mrs Rushton as the trio stood chatting in the evening sunshine. ‘I’m all for dishing out a good hiding if it’s warranted but those poor little devils look petrified whenever she comes on the scene. You’re a policeman, can’t you do anything?’
‘Have you seen any mark on them?’ asked the craggy Mr Rushton.
‘Well, no more than the odd bruise – but you don’t have to see open wounds as evidence!’
‘You do if you want me to arrest her, or at least you have to catch her belting them.’
Fanny sighed defeatedly. ‘We’d have to live next door to do that.’ Then she made a sudden decision. ‘I shall have a word with those on either side of her to let us know the minute they see or hear anything untoward.’
Mr Rushton gave a curt nod. ‘In that case I’ll happily oblige. All we can do till then is be extra kind ourselves.’
His wife agreed, but thought there might be another way to hit back at Eliza. ‘You know, I’m sure she’s still claiming a pension for Maddie. The kids crack on she’s still living at home but I know damn well she’s in service at Wath. Mrs Green knows the woman she works for. I’ll bet Eliza’s still claiming for her. She seems to spend an awful lot of money on herself.’
‘Yes, I noticed she had a new hat and coat,’ chipped in Fanny. ‘Poor old Probe didn’t get mourned for long, did he?’
‘I’m going to speak to the Parish about her diddling,’ finished Mrs Rushton.
Thus, a few mornings after this conversation had taken place, Eliza was to receive a visit from two people who were quite obviously in positions of authority. ‘Mrs Kilmaster, we have a receipt here which you sent to us claiming recompense for clothes allegedly purchased for your daughter Madeleine.’
Eliza blanched. ‘What do you mean “allegedly”? They were bought for her.’ This was a lie. Sick of her widow’s weeds, she had lately packed up the dress she had bought for Probyn’s funeral, along with two petticoats, and dispatched them to Madeleine so that no one could level accusations that the girl wasn’t getting the benefit of her pension – but someone obviously had. ‘You can see her wearing them if you like.’
‘We would like, yes. May we speak to her?’
‘She’s at work.’
‘Then tell us the location of her workplace and we’ll go and speak to her there.’
Eliza began to panic. ‘Oh, I don’t think her employer would be too pleased at you taking her from her chores!’
‘Allow us to handle that.’ The man’s attitude demanded compliance.
For the moment, Eliza was rendered dumb.
‘It’s been brought to our notice that you are still claiming Parish Relief for Madeleine when in fact she’s been in service for some weeks.’
Eliza went on the offensive. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Never mind who it was. Is it true?’
‘Of course it isn’t! If you come back this evening you’ll be able to see her – about eight o’clock.’ That would give Clem time to go and fetch Maddie home.
Her ploy failed, the man being insistent. ‘We’d prefer to see her now. I’m sure her employer wouldn’t object if we were to call on a genuine mission. Just tell us where she works and we can go there ourselves.’ When Eliza was slow to respond he added, ‘I must warn you that it’s an imprisonable offence to claim for children not under your roof.’
Eliza caved in then, wringing her hands and assuming the air of poor aggrieved widow. ‘All right, she is in service and I have been claiming the money but I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to and it was all spent on Madeleine!’
‘We can check,’ said the woman.
‘Then do!’ Eliza reverted to defiance. ‘I’ve nothing to hide.’ Angry now, she gave them the address of Madeleine’s workplace. ‘The girl will tell you I’ve sent her all sorts.’
‘Nevertheless, it’s still not in order. You can expect another visit.’ So saying, the man and his companion left.
Subsequently interrogated by the couple, a worried Madeleine brought out the bundle she had lately received from her stepmother.
The woman examined the black crepe dress with a white cross embroidered on its bodice – quite obviously a funeral gown. Informed naively by Madeleine that yes, it had once belonged to her stepmother, the couple were swift to make a return visit to Eliza on the evening of that same day.
* * *
‘Eh, I think she’s been rumbled!’ Standing on the corner, chatting to her friend, an alert Mrs Rushton elbowed Fanny and both watched with amusement as the couple on Eliza’s doorstep confronted her.
Inside the Kilmaster house, using pegs to insert strips of material into the piece of hessian that would be turned into a rug, the children were listening with baited breath too. They had heard the word ‘prison’ mentioned!
‘I only wore it once!’ Eliza was objecting.
‘Nevertheless, you maintained that the garment was for your daughter and in doing so acted fraudulently,’ replied the man. ‘What would your children do if you were locked up?’
‘We’d throw a bloody party!’ Joe grinned at Duke and his sisters, daring to speak openly, for his stepbrother George was in the lavatory.
Eliza pleaded with her accusers. ‘It wasn’t done intentionally! What’s a widow to do?’
‘She’ll adhere to the law like everyone else! Now, I’d warn you to think before you answer. Are you claiming for any more that aren’t under your roof?’
‘No! I swear it.’
‘Good, because if we have to come and speak to you again about this deception you’ll be in court. Consider yourself very fortunate that you’ve got away this time. Good day to you!’
Dismayed that their stepmother was not to be incarcerated, the youngsters put their heads down and feig
ned to be working on the rug as a furious Eliza stormed back into the room. ‘Right! Which one of you’s been tittle-tattling?’
The children cowered, their sore fingers striving to insert the metal pegs through the tough material.
The only one not working on the rug, a surly Joe dared to mutter, ‘It weren’t us. We don’t know anything about it.’
Eliza launched a punch at him. ‘It had better not be! Now get to bloody bed, the lot of you!’ And she began to lay about all of them.
Hearing the commotion emanating from the Kilmaster house, Fanny Gentle and Mrs Rushton beheld each other in dismay at the thought that their good intentions might have brought further hardship on Eliza’s victims.
‘Ooh, get your Stan,’ suggested Fanny.
‘He isn’t here!’ Mrs Rushton chewed her lip for a moment, then, imagining what was happening inside that house, said, ‘Oh, I can’t stand this.’ And she set off across the street to bang angrily on the Kilmasters’ door, Fanny in pursuit.
When Eliza’s equally irate face appeared, Mrs Rushton warned, ‘I’m going to write to Probyn’s sisters and let them know what’s going on! I’ll post it tonight and they’ll be on your doorstep tomorrow!’
Eliza curled her lip. ‘No, they won’t ’cause there’s no more Sunday post!’ And she slammed the door on them.
‘Eh, she’s always got a bloody answer!’ raged Mrs Rushton. ‘Right, well, if she can call my bluff I can call hers. I am going to contact Probyn’s sisters.’
‘Have you got their address?’ asked Fanny.
‘No, but what’s the use of being married to a policeman if you can’t find out a simple thing like that? I don’t know why I haven’t thought of it before.’
* * *
Immediately Ethel received Mrs Rushton’s letter, she contacted her favourite sister, Meredith, and announced that they must go to Denaby Main without delay. Despite having moved to Lancashire, Merry agreed and travelled over that same day.
A Different Kind of Love Page 45
