My Father, My Son

by Sheelagh Kelly

  Rowena turned eyes and feet to the dresser, smiling her satisfaction when it revealed just what she needed. Fetching a basket, she began to stack the plates inside and after these the cutlery. When this was done she put a hand to her mouth. Would the soldiers need a tablecloth? She selected one and laid it on top of the basket. By now her sisters’ chatter could be heard on the stairs. Soon they had joined her.

  ‘I’m dedicating my hot water bottle too,’ said Becky, holding out the earthenware vessel.

  Rowena smiled. ‘I’m sure they’ll be very grateful.’

  ‘And we’ve taken a blanket off our bed,’ said Lyn. Rowena’s face glowed. ‘Is Charlie looking after Mona and Squawk? Good! Get your coats, then, and we can be back before dinner.’

  * * *

  Rachel hooked a hand over her shoulder to massage the knotted muscles and, after a look at the clock, decided to pack away. On getting up, she tried again to ease the ache in her shoulders by stretching, then went to the kitchen to check on Biddy’s progress. ‘Did you get those potatoes?’

  Biddy continued to stir the pan on the range. ‘Sorry, ma’am, but the farmers can’t get their deliveries through ’cause the Army’s taken all their horses.’

  Rachel made a noise of repressed anger, then went over to the dresser to push in the drawer which Rowena had left protruding by half an inch. ‘As long as they have their horses they couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss if we starve – and who’s left all these drawers sticking out?’

  ‘Not me, ma’am. I haven’t been in there.’

  ‘Well, somebody has!’ Rachel opened a drawer, took out a tablecloth then rammed it shut. For a moment she continued fussing about… then her face took on a glazed expression. Slowly, she reopened the drawer and stared down into it. ‘Where’s the boy?’ she enquired in a tone softer than normal.

  ‘Which one is that, ma’am?’

  ‘The boy, the boy!’ Rachel spun on the maid.

  ‘Why, I think he’s upstairs, ma’am.’

  ‘He’d better be!’

  ‘Ma’am, what’s wrong?’ Biddy’s eyebrows covered her eyes.

  ‘He’s taken my best silver, that’s what’s wrong! And if he isn’t upstairs you are for it, my girl! Go fetch him.’ She turned back to scrabble in the other drawers.

  Biddy rushed upstairs like a stampeding rhino and burst into the girls’ room, to be greeted by startled faces. ‘Oh, Jesus! Thank God, you’re here!’ She hurled herself at Charlie, grabbing his arm. ‘Herself is thinkin’ ye’ve run off with the silver – ye haven’t, have ye?’

  ‘No, what silver?’ Charlie permitted himself to be dragged to the stairs.

  ‘Her very best silver! ’Twas in that oak cupboard an’ somebody swiped it!’

  Rowena’s heart lurched. She tossed a desperate look at her sisters, before scampering after the maid and Charlie.

  ‘’S all right, ma’am!’ announced Biddy, trying to catch her breath as she pushed the hapless boy forward. ‘I’ve nabbed him.’

  Rachel stalked up to him. ‘Where is it?’ Charlie could only spread his hands.

  ‘Mother,’ came a small voice. ‘Which silver is it that’s missing?’

  Rachel hardly spared a glance for her daughter, all her accusal centred on the boy. ‘I only have the one lot of silver! Or should I say had, before somebody put their thieving hands on it.’

  ‘Mother… I think it was me.’

  Rachel paid her more attention now. ‘You think it was you?’

  Rowena turned to the maid. ‘Biddy, when I asked you if there was any crockery Mother didn’t use, which cupboard did you mean?’

  ‘That one,’ said Biddy.

  ‘Then… it is me, Mother,’ admitted Rowena softly. ‘I’m sorry, I thought when Biddy said you didn’t use it…’

  But her mother was now engaged in throwing open the cupboard doors. ‘My best dinner service! Aagh!’ She wheeled. ‘What have you done with it?’

  Her daughter tried to explain. ‘We took it for the poor young soldiers. They haven’t enough plates to go round and…’

  Rachel had entered a state of near dementia, hands clasped to her head. ‘The Army’s got my best dinner service!’

  ‘We thought you’d be pleased that we were trying to help,’ lamented the girl. ‘We were thinking of Father.’

  Her mother gave a hysterical cackle, then whirled on Biddy. ‘Get down there and bring them back!’ She flashed a look at her daughter. ‘Where did you take them?’ On being told, she turned back to Biddy. ‘Get down to the Assembly Rooms as fast as you can! And don’t come back without them.’

  ‘But the dinner…’

  Rachel grasped the pan handle and lifted it from the heat, slopping its contents to sizzle on the hob. ‘Blast the dinner. Go!’

  Biddy grabbed her coat and hared off, reappearing to thrust a letter at her mistress. ‘That was on the mat.’

  ‘Go on, go on!’ Rachel snatched the letter and shooed her away, then paced out her agitation on the kitchen floor.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Mother,’ tendered Rowena yet again.

  ‘And so you should be!’ The letter was clamped to her heaving breast.

  ‘I would’ve asked you but you said we weren’t to disturb you and we thought we were taking the stuff you didn’t use.’

  ‘And we don’t have to look far to find the instigator, do we?’ Rachel was glaring at Charlie. ‘Not content to drive my husband into the Army, he’s got to give them my heirlooms too!’

  ‘It wasn’t Charlie’s idea,’ confessed Rowena. ‘It was mine.’

  ‘I know who it was!’ Rachel’s fingers nipped and twisted the letter. Looking down at it, she began to rip it open. However, she had not read more than six lines when her eyes shot up again. ‘Rowena, get out of my sight until you’re called – not you!’

  Charlie, about to leave, turned back. When the room was empty save for the two of them, Rachel flourished the letter in his face. ‘Read that!’

  He looked at it. ‘It’s for my father.’

  ‘Yes! And read what it says! See what your precious father has gone and left me to cope with!’ The soulful expression in his eyes provoked her further and she gave loud voice to it. ‘The priest isn’t coming, I’m stuck with you!’ The image of the NSPCC woman leapt into her mind – they were supposed to let her know when Charlie went back to Africa. What could Rachel tell her now?

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Charlie folded the letter and handed it back.

  She knocked it from his hands. ‘I wish you’d stop saying that! It’s no good being sorry. Sorry won’t set the clock back. Why, oh why did you have to come here?’ In all the time he had been here it was the first time she had bothered to ask.

  ‘I wanted to see my father.’

  ‘That’s no answer!’ she shrilled tearfully. ‘I mean, you must’ve known he didn’t want you. No father goes away and leaves his offspring for eleven years without a word.’

  ‘But he sent money,’ Charlie pointed out.

  ‘To buy your mother off, you clown! Not because he was concerned about what happened to you. So she wouldn’t come looking for him.’

  ‘No… my mother always said that Father would come back for us – he told her that.’

  ‘Then your mother was as big a fool as I was if she believed him,’ said Rachel bitterly. ‘Apart from… the other thing.’ She pressed a handkerchief to her face, then shoved it back in her pocket.

  ‘What other thing?’

  ‘Never mind! Much as I can’t bear the sight of you I wouldn’t speak ill of the dead.’

  ‘But you must tell me what’s on your mind so I can understand your dislike of me.’

  This show of maturity produced another burst of passion. ‘You pious little…’ She strode up to him. ‘All right! I’ll tell you what your mother was – a harlot! Do you know what a harlot is? Yes, I’m sure you do! In your mother’s instance it’s a woman who hangs around the soldiers and sells her body for a string of beads or whatever he gave he
r.’

  Charlie didn’t understand what she meant by ‘sell’ but it was obviously something bad. He shook his head. ‘She never…’

  ‘She stole my husband! He was married to me and she seduced him!’

  ‘But I’m certain she didn’t know… she never mentioned…’

  ‘She knew! The sly – d’you think he would’ve done that if it hadn’t been thrown at him?’

  Charlie struggled to equate the two sides of the tale. His mother had always spoken of Hazelwood with affection, had shown implicit faith that he would, one day, come back for his son and had implanted that belief in Charlie. ‘My mother never knew he was married to you, I’m sure of it. She truly loved my father.’

  ‘Then it’s a good job for her that she died before discovering what he really is!’ spat Rachel.

  Charlie looked down at his shoes. His mother had been dead for over a year, but he still missed her. He didn’t like the things Mrs Hazelwood was saying about her, nevertheless he could understand the woman’s hatred. This he told Rachel, adding, ‘Though I’m positive it wasn’t her intention to hurt you… But I didn’t ask to be born. I’ve done you no harm. Why do you…’

  ‘No harm!’ Rachel cut him off with a shrieking laugh. ‘You came here, didn’t you? You’ve destroyed us, all of us. My husband was the Sheriff of York, this family was respected and then you turn up and now look at us. There’s poor Bertie had to stay off school because of the bullying, there’s people whispering every time I pluck up courage to step out of the front door, and what does your hero of a father do? He runs away with his tail between his legs, leaving me to cope with the consequences of his adultery. Tell me something: now that you know what sort of a man he really is, what he thinks about you, why do you stay? You came here by your own steam, you’re quite capable of making your own way back to Africa. Why do you stay?’

  He deliberated, remembering what Father Guillaume had taught him about being responsible for one’s actions. ‘I think that as I was the one to drive my father away, I should take his place.’ At her frown, he explained, ‘I’m the eldest. It’s up to me to take care of you.’

  ‘Take care of me? Take care of me! If I need taking care of I have my own son, I don’t need you to do it. And if taking care of me constitutes giving away everything of value in this house then the best you can do is get yourself back where you belong, right now!’

  Charlie indicated the letter on the floor. ‘Father Guillaume says…’

  ‘Father Guillaume doesn’t have to sit and look at your black face as evidence of his partner’s treachery!’

  ‘I’ll stay until my father gets back,’ said Charlie doggedly. ‘It’s my duty.’

  ‘You self-important little prig! What makes you think he’s coming back?’

  ‘He’ll come back.’

  His surety made her want to explode. But in the midst of her anger she caught sight of a spider on the cupboard nearby, and recoiled. ‘All right! If you want to earn your keep you can dispose of that for me!’ She lanced a finger at the creature, which was the size of a half-crown. He hung back. ‘Well, go on! You won’t make it go just by looking at it, although you succeeded with your father.’ She waited.

  ‘I’m… scared of spiders,’ came his shamefaced admission.

  She gave a nasty laugh, then went to the foot of the stairs to shout for her son. After the spider was dealt with, she and Bertie gave the intruder a look of disdain and left him alone.

  In the deafening quiet that followed, Charlie wandered over to the table to pick up the other letter that had arrived in the same envelope.

  My dear Charlie,

  By now, as I told your father, you will know I have decided to cancel my visit to England. Forgive me, if this seems I have forsaken you, but there are others in far greater need of my presence. You have a roof over your head, are presumably well fed, and judging from your letter, not too unhappy. The people of my homeland are undergoing desperate conditions. I must go and help them, Charlie. I know you will understand this.

  I was rather disturbed to read that you are denied the comfort of your faith, but hasten to assure you that it is no sin on your part, as long as you pray wherever you are. Since my last correspondence, hastily penned, I have had time to reflect on what I said to you then. Perhaps I was harsh in saying that you alone are responsible for the situation you are in. That was my own inadequacy speaking, I’m afraid. I was angry that I had looked after you all these years just for you to go swanning off after your real father. I say ‘real’ father, Charlie, because if I am to admit the truth it is to say I had begun to think of myself in that role. No natural father could have loved you more…

  Charlie was brought up sharp by this admission, and it doubled his guilt. The priest was right; he was churlish to have spurned such obvious paternity in search of something that never was. But it would be, Charlie bolstered himself, one day my father will love me…

  I feel I am partly to blame for your present turmoil. It was I who perpetuated the myth by leading your mother to believe that Mr Hazelwood had sent messages for her along with the money. On the latter point, of course I forgive you for taking it. It was, after all, intended for your welfare, so your act could not really be construed as stealing. Though I do intend to claim recompense from your posterior for the ruined cashbox and one of my best knives!

  Dearest Charlie, I pray that Mrs Hazelwood and Bertie will be more kindly disposed towards you by now, and that your prolonged stay there will turn out to be happy. If ever you feel like writing to me – and I do hope that this will be often – you will find my proposed address at the foot of this page. God keep you kindly and remember me in your prayers, as you are in mine.

  Yours affectionately,

  Father Guillaume

  After the second reading his eyes began to burn. He remained in the kitchen for a long time, his throat heavy with unshed tears, and was not prompted into movement until Biddy’s noisy return.

  Her red face was partially hidden by a cardboard box. ‘Jesus save us, me legs’re worn to stumps!’

  Charlie gave a little cough to dislodge the emotion from his throat.

  The box was unceremoniously dumped on the table, enabling the maid to sprawl her ungainly body into a chair. ‘Where’s the missus? I thought she’d be here to leap on me the second I got back, her an’ her bloody plates.’

  ‘Did you get them?’ he enquired anxiously.

  ‘Huh! I did.’ She patted the box. ‘After virtuously having to scrape the food off them. They’d already been put to good use. An’ a right load o’ gob I had to take on your account, my lad.’

  Charlie didn’t bother to defend himself. ‘And the silver?’ The creases of discomfort on Biddy’s face smoothed into apprehension. ‘Well, put it like this, I’m hardly going to receive her thanks when I tell her there’s a full bottle o’ silver polish goin’ to be wasted.’ She grimaced and pressed herself from the dining chair to take off her coat. ‘It’ll be melted down by now if I know the military.’

  ‘It really wasn’t my doing, you know.’

  ‘Nor mine neither but ’tis me who’ll get the custard pie! Make yourself useful an’ lay the plates for dinner – for the love o’ Christ, not those!’

  ‘I was only lifting the box off the table.’

  ‘Well, for God’s sake be more careful, else we’ll both be fed to the Germans.’

  Charlie was thoughtful as the maid put the pan back on to reheat. ‘Biddy… d’you think she’d really like it if my father got killed?’

  Biddy glanced at him, saw his worry. ‘No, I think for all her fuss she’d be sorry if the master came back dead – pass me that salt now.’

  * * *

  ‘I’m sorry to get you into more bother, Charlie,’ said Rowena later when the two of them were separated from the others. There had been further chastisement over dinner.

  ‘It wasn’t just the silver,’ he replied. ‘It was Father Guillaume’s letter. He’s gone to Belgium.’ />
  ‘So you’ll be staying a while longer, then?’ He gave a melancholic nod. ‘I wondered why Mother wanted to speak to you alone. I heard her shouting at you.’ At his miserable expression, she said in light manner, ‘Becky’ll be pleased you’re staying,’ and smiled to cheer him up.

  Nothing else was said until they had taken to the stairs, when Charlie exclaimed, ‘Wena, do you know what adultery is?’ She shook her head. ‘Neither do I. Your mother said it about Father and my mother. I didn’t understand.’

  ‘It’s obviously something to do with adults,’ said Rowena expertly. ‘But come on, we’ll go and look it up in my dictionary.’ It was about time they made proper investigation. ‘You go up to the attic and I’ll fetch it.’

  The dictionary was not very instructive: violation of the marriage bed; illicit sexual intercourse on the part of a married person. They both thought they knew what violation meant, but had to look up sexual intercourse. Finding only the first part, they had to thumb back to the i’s for intercourse, which they discovered meant one of several things, none of which made them any clearer on the meaning of adultery.

  Rowena put a finger in the air. ‘I’ve just remembered! It’s one of the Ten Commandments: Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery.’

  ‘Oh…’ Charlie’s face was bleak. ‘It’s a sin, then.’ But what was the nature of the sin?

  ‘Becky, what d’you want?’ Rowena turned to ask her sister, whose auburn head had appeared round the door.

  Becky answered resentfully, ‘I can come up and see Charlie if I like – you’re here.’

  ‘Yes, but we’re discussing private business,’ said her big sister. ‘Please go away.’

  ‘You don’t own him, you know!’

  ‘And neither do you!’ Rowena changed her tack. ‘Look, I’ll be gone in a minute and you can have him all to yourself, but this is very important.’ Becky made several objections but was eventually persuaded to leave. Though this didn’t stop her listening at the door. Rowena turned back to Charlie. ‘I still don’t get this.’ She tapped the book. ‘I’m going to ask my scripture teacher at the next lesson.’