Every Mother's Son

by Val Wood

  She snuggled up close. ‘He knows about Noah. We visit his grave every Christmas. I don’t think he’s concerned about it. We’ve never concealed the fact that Noah was his father.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Fletcher sounded dubious. ‘He’s growing up and thinking more. When he was little he probably didn’t understand what we meant. But Rosie has been telling him about his grandfather … Marius.’

  ‘Marco,’ Harriet interrupted. ‘You mean Marco.’

  ‘Well, yeh.’ Fletcher exhaled. ‘Him. But I don’t want Rosie telling Daniel about her former life. I think it’s better coming from us. You,’ he told her. ‘It has to be you.’

  Harriet sat up, leaning on her elbow, and gazed down at him. ‘Are you serious? Are you worried about it?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ he said emphatically. ‘I don’t want him getting to the age where he thinks he knows everything, like lads do, and then discovering it from somebody else. And ’other bairns should be told too,’ he added. ‘I know they’re young, but we could tell Maria and Dolly at least, though mebbe not Lenny.’

  Harriet put her head back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ She turned and kissed his cheek. ‘You usually are.’

  It was not going to be easy, Harriet thought the next day. In fact, it was very complicated. How would she explain to a boy not yet thirteen that his father, not Fletcher but Noah, had had such a strange upbringing and hadn’t known the truth about his own background or parentage until he was a grown man and a father himself?

  I needn’t tell all, she decided as she hung washing on the line in the paddock and stood with her hands on her hips, watching the sheets and shirts flap in the breeze. No need to say too much about Fletcher’s embittered mother, Ellen Tuke, who had been compelled by her husband to bring up a child who was not her own, and the part she had played in turning Noah into such an angry, hostile man.

  Harriet often wondered how Ellen, a resentful and uncaring woman, had given birth to a son as mild and loving as Fletcher, a man of strength and reasoning; it was a puzzle she could never understand.

  She walked to the edge of the garden and looked down the fertile valley. She folded her arms and pondered on how lucky she was. Sometimes she couldn’t believe it, to have a loving husband, a clutch of beautiful children and a home of which she was so proud.

  Behind her sat her house, their house, hers and Fletcher’s, who had built it brick by brick, stone by stone. Built it for her and Daniel and the children who had come later. Doublestoreyed, of brick and limewashed stone, its windows gazed down the valley towards the Humber, the river that she had known all her life, from her poverty-stricken birthplace in Hull to the farm at the edge of the estuary salt marsh near Broomfleet where Noah had brought her as his bride, and where a year later the waters had claimed his life as he tried in vain to save Nathaniel, the man he had thought was his father.

  Harriet’s marriage to Noah had been a convenience and a necessity for her at a time when she was desperate and at her wits’ end. She had lost her job at the mill and was working part time in a Hull hostelry, which was where she had met him. Her mother was sick; dying, although Harriet hadn’t realized it. Noah’s offer was the result of an arrogant bet with his brother Fletcher that he would find a wife before he did, and came shortly after her mother had died, leaving her all alone. Her father Joseph and her brothers had died at sea many years before, except for Leonard, her favourite, who had gone off to seek his fortune but had never returned, which had left her with feelings of anger as well as loss.

  What would have happened to me if Noah hadn’t made me that offer? she thought now, as she so often did. I’d have gone into ’workhouse, I expect; no work, no home, no family. She gave herself a shake and turned to go back inside to prepare the midday meal. Then she smiled. Who’d have thought that such a bad beginning would have turned out as it did: meeting Fletcher, Noah’s brother as they’d assumed he was before knowing the truth, and falling instantly in love. A love that they never imagined could be fulfilled. And it never would have been but for poor Noah’s death. A shadow of sadness fell upon her; she understood Noah’s anger and bitterness so much better now than she ever did when she was married to him.

  As Harriet served up their dinner, Fletcher said to the children, ‘I thought I’d go to Brough on Sunday to see Granny Tuke. Who’d like to come with me?’

  No one answered immediately until Lenny said, ‘Can we go fishing in ’Haven?’

  ‘Erm – no, not this time,’ his father answered. ‘I shan’t stay long. I’ve to prepare for ’harvesters coming on Monday.’

  Maria shook her head. ‘No thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m going to help Ma with Sunday dinner. I’m going to mek an apple pie.’

  ‘Oh, very nice,’ her father said, trying not to sound disappointed. ‘Daniel, what about you?’

  Daniel finished what he was eating. Then he looked down at his plate. ‘I don’t think Granny Tuke’d want me to go. She doesn’t like me very much. She doesn’t talk to me.’

  Harriet drew in a breath of anger. How dare her mother-in-law give that impression to her beautiful boy? She glanced at Fletcher and thought that Ellen Tuke didn’t really like anyone except her own son.

  ‘I’ll come if you like, Da,’ Dolly said quietly. ‘We could take Joseph; he likes to ride in ’trap.’

  ‘You’d watch him, wouldn’t you, Dolly?’ Harriet interrupted hastily. ‘I wouldn’t want him going near ’water.’

  She knew that Mrs Tuke wouldn’t bother to watch over the toddler, and thought that the woman would probably like the children more if they had been born to someone other than her. Ellen had never forgiven Harriet for marrying Fletcher.

  ‘Well, we’ll see.’ Fletcher pushed his chair back from the table. ‘No need to decide now. Come on, Daniel, let’s get back to it. We’ll turn ’sheep into ’hayfield to graze.’

  ‘Where’s Tom today?’ Harriet asked. ‘I thought he’d be up for some dinner.’

  ‘He will be. He’s in ’threshing yard.’

  ‘I’ll keep it hot for him.’ Harriet set about plating up meat pie and vegetables for Tom and putting them in the side oven.

  ‘Right then, Da.’ Daniel rose from the table. ‘Thanks, Ma. See you after.’

  Harriet smiled. Daniel never failed to thank her for a meal. It was as if he knew that cooking and keeping them all well fed was her job of work just as his was helping Fletcher.

  Fletcher nodded and mouthed his thanks too, and put his hand on Daniel’s shoulder as they went out into the yard.

  ‘Sorry, Da, you know, about not wanting to go to see Granny Tuke,’ Daniel murmured.

  ‘What meks you think she doesn’t like you, Daniel? Has she said summat? I know she can be a bit crabby sometimes. I think it’s because she spends so much time on her own.’

  Fletcher was making excuses for his mother; he couldn’t ever recall a time in his life when she had seemed pleased or happy to see them. Maybe occasionally if he called by himself she might greet him with a nod, but she never asked about the welfare of his family and always grew silent again when he made his departure.

  Daniel shrugged and his voice dropped even lower. ‘She – erm, she once said I was nowt to do wi’ her. It was when Joseph was just a little babby and we took him to show her, an’ I said, you’ve got three grandsons now.’ He stopped as if unsure whether to go on. ‘And she said, two, I’ve got two. You’re Rosie Gilbank’s grand-bairn, not mine.’

  Fletcher cursed beneath his breath at his mother’s insensitivity. How could she be so cold and cruel? It’s because I treat Daniel as my own. He’s just ’same to me as those born to me. She’s so unforgiving; she thinks life has treated her badly, but it hasn’t. There are others who have had a harder life than her, but they don’t hold grudges in the way that she does. He thought of Rosie Gilbank, Daniel’s grandmother by blood. She had had a much worse life, but she was loved by all the other children and considered to be their grandm
other too, and it made her happy to be treated as part of their family.

  His own mother had never visited his home, never seen how successful he had become, and she never would, because of her animosity towards Harriet.

  ‘Why isn’t she my gran?’ Daniel asked. His smooth forehead creased into a furrow and he pushed away a lock of dark curly hair. ‘Is it because of Noah in ’churchyard being my father? But he was your brother, wasn’t he, so wouldn’t she still be my grandmother?’

  Fletcher opened the gate to the recently cut hayfield, and closed it behind them before they walked down towards the bottom end to let the sheep in.

  ‘Erm, no, not really. It’s quite complicated to explain,’ he said. ‘But your ma and me were onny saying last night that we should talk to you about it again, cos you’ve probably forgotten what we told you when you were a bairn.’

  ‘I have,’ Daniel said. ‘And I’d like to know. Is it why Maria and Dolly and Lenny and Joseph have all got fair hair and I haven’t?’ He frowned again. ‘A lad at school once said that I was a foreigner.’

  ‘So what did you say?’

  ‘I didn’t say owt,’ Daniel replied. ‘I just put my fists up and told him to say it again.’ He gave a sudden grin and Fletcher thought what a handsome lad he was. Large dark-brown eyes with thick long lashes that any girl would envy and olive skin that browned in the summer sun. ‘And he ran off,’ he added triumphantly.

  On the following Sunday Fletcher decided that he wouldn’t visit his mother after all, but would invite Granny Rosie to come for Sunday dinner with them instead. She came often, having moved to Elloughton Dale from her home in Brough to be closer to the family; she loved her charming cottage and enjoyed the walk up the dale to help Harriet with the children.

  Harriet had first met Rosie when she was seeking out Noah’s birth family and Daniel’s forebears. She often reflected that Rosie was almost her surrogate mother, Harriet’s own mother having died shortly after she had met Noah. Rosie, a widow, living alone, was delighted to be included as part of the family.

  Fletcher and Daniel went in the trap to fetch her and save her the walk.

  ‘Granny Rosie,’ Daniel blurted out. ‘We’re going to discuss our family.’

  Rosie turned to Fletcher, who raised his eyebrows. ‘Are we?’ She chewed on her bottom lip. ‘What sort of discussion?’

  ‘Nowt too daunting, Rosie,’ Fletcher answered before Daniel could reply. ‘Daniel wants to know about Noah. He’s forgotten most of what we told him.’

  Rosie looked anxious. ‘But you know that I was – well, you know about my circumstances, Fletcher?’

  He patted her hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Harriet will explain only as much as is necessary.’

  ‘Oh,’ Daniel leaned forward, ‘but I want to know everything. I’m old enough.’

  Fletcher nodded. ‘Of course.’ He cast a pacifying glance at Rosie. ‘But some of it will keep.’

  When they arrived back Daniel and Fletcher took themselves off somewhere and Lenny ran out to join them after shouting a quick hello to Rosie, and she reflected that for a farmer there was always a job to be done, even on a Sunday. In the kitchen, where Harriet and the two girls were busy, there was a good smell of roast pork; Dolly was beating up a Yorkshire pudding and splashing the batter all over her apron, and Maria was rolling pastry for the apple pie.

  ‘What a hive of activity,’ Rosie said. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘Yes, you can sit in a chair with a cup of tea and give Joseph some milk, if you will,’ Harriet said. ‘Then mebbe he’ll settle down a bit.’

  Rosie picked up the child and kissed his round and rosy cheek. ‘He’s as plump as a chicken,’ she smiled, thrilled to be given such a task. She sat in a fireside chair with Joseph on her knee, and took the milk from Harriet, whispering to her as she did so, so that the two girls wouldn’t hear, ‘Daniel said we’re going to have a discussion about the family. You won’t tell him everything, will you, Harriet? About me, I mean. I don’t want him to despise me if he finds out what a terrible person I was.’

  ‘You were not a terrible person, Rosie,’ Harriet said gently. ‘You were a victim of circumstances, and you were young,’ she added, ‘and not in control of your life.’

  Rosie gazed at her, this woman who had become the daughter she had never had. A tear rolled down her cheek. ‘I was young,’ she agreed huskily, ‘but I should never have tekken ’step that I did. How different life might have been.’ She took a deep breath and peeped at Joseph, who was looking back at her from his blue eyes. He giggled at her and wriggled on her lap.

  ‘How did I come to do it?’ she whispered. ‘What kind of woman would give a child away as I did?’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Rosie saw that Joseph’s eyes were beginning to close. It wasn’t wholly my fault, she thought. She put her head back on the chair and closed her own eyes. It was a life-changing occurrence. She felt Harriet take the cup from her limp hand as if she thought that Rosie and Joseph were both asleep.

  I’m not asleep, Rosie thought. I’m just thinking of how it was.

  There was just me and Ma and my father. I was fourteen and had started work a month before in a fabric shop in Whitefriargate, which was just round ’corner from where we lived in Hull. Da worked on the New Dock clearing out the ships when they came in from abroad and Ma worked in one of ’flour mills. We were not rich, but we had a nice little terrace house with clean curtains and a well-scrubbed doorstep and we allus had food on ’table and paid our rent regularly.

  I remember that day so well. Ma was already in and cooking a meal when I got home at about seven. Da got in about an hour later, dead beat because he’d been working all day in ’bilges of a military ship. The soldiers had been put off at the garrison and the ship had been directed round to ’New Dock as there was a berth available.

  ‘Oh, God, what a stink down there,’ Da said. ‘You just wouldn’t believe it. I had to put a scarf over my mouth or I’d have thrown up.’

  ‘We don’t want to know about that,’ my mother said. ‘Go and wash your hands afore you sit down at ’table.’ She was fussy like that, was my ma.

  I could smell ’stink on his clothes, though, and moved away from him. ‘Da,’ I said, ‘you’re going to have to change your clothes, they stink horrible.’ So he got up from ’table and took his jacket and shirt off and sat in his trousers and vest and I noticed that he scratched a lot as if he had lice.

  We blamed that ship when he got ill a few days later, and Ma spoke to one of ’neighbours who told her that her son had travelled on the same ship and was taken off sick and put in quarantine. I didn’t know what quarantine meant until someone at ’shop told me. And then Ma got sick too and couldn’t go to work so I had to stay at home and look after them both.

  I went to ’dock office to tell them why my father was off work. ‘He’s picked something up off that ship,’ I told the clerk. ‘He’ll be back as soon as he can, and can I have his wages up to date, please.’

  He said he’d have to ask a superior and would I wait, which I did, and another man came out to talk to me, but he stood well back and asked what Da’s symptoms were and why did we think he’d picked up a disease from the ship.

  ‘Cos he was working in ’bilges, and he said that they stank,’ I said, very bold I was, ‘so it stands to reason that it was ’stink that’s made him sick. And,’ I added so that he would think I knew what I was talking about, ‘we know that a soldier off ’same ship has gone down wi’ summat and is in quarantine.’

  ‘It’s called ship fever,’ he said. ‘Or sometimes workhouse fever. Are you well fed and clean?’ He looked me up and down and said, ‘You look as if you’re healthy.’

  I was very put out when he said that, as it seemed to imply that I might not have been, but ’next day a doctor knocked on our door and he had a black bag with him and said that he’d heard from the ship authorities that someone was probably carrying an infectious fever.

>   He looked at my father, who by now was in a very poor state and quite delirious, and then at my mother lying next to him. ‘Who else lives here?’ he asked. ‘Do you have any other family?’

  I told him that we hadn’t, that there was onny me, and he said that Ma and Da would have to be moved to ’Infirmary where there was a special room for patients like them, and that I would have to move out of the house because it would have to be fumigated. And then ’worst blow of all was that my father probably wouldn’t last ’night out.

  When I recovered my senses, I asked him what disease had they got and he said he couldn’t be totally sure but probably typhus, which was deadlier than typhoid. And he said that it was endemic in Hull and I didn’t know what that meant either but it didn’t sound very nice.

  Rosie’s eyes flickered and she saw Harriet still busy at the stone sink and Maria putting something into the oven. She felt the warmth of Joseph on her knee and remembered how it had felt when Noah had been a small boy.

  I had to leave home after Da and then Ma died. I couldn’t afford ’rent on my wages. When I explained that to Harriet she said she understood as she’d been through ’same thing after her mother died. I had an aunt who lived in Brough so I decided to sell up everything we owned and get a lift wi’ carrier and ask Aunt Bess if I could stop with her for a bit until I got another job. But I hadn’t reckoned on nobody wanting to buy any of ’furniture because of us having an infectious disease in ’house, so I onny just scraped enough money together to buy some food and pay ’carrier’s charge.

  I had Aunt Bess’s last known address but when I got there and knocked on the door, the woman who answered said there was nobody of that name living there.

  I didn’t know what to do and I wandered around ’town asking various folk if they knew my aunt but nobody did. I hadn’t enough money for lodgings so I sat on a garden wall just to think what would be ’best thing to do.

  And then a woman came out of ’house and asked what was I doing. I told her and started to cry, and she asked if I’d like to go in for a cup of tea. What an angel she seemed. She said her name was Miriam Stone and I didn’t know then what her occupation was, which was just as well as I’d never have dared to go inside otherwise. As I didn’t know, I went in, and my life changed from then on.