The Girl From Poorhouse Lane

by Freda Lightfoot

  The moment the bank opened, he set about his enquiries. Eliot asked pertinent questions about the financial affairs of various members of his staff, including his own brother but the manager was completely uncooperative, pleading confidentiality of client interest.

  Later that day as he was studying the order books, Eliot noticed that the firm who supplied them with the dressed leather had recently changed hands, bought out by an unknown buyer. This was just the breakthrough he had been looking for and he spread his net wider, asking a number of judicial questions among business colleagues, until finally the facts emerged and a picture began to form.

  At this point he called an extraordinary general meeting of the board for the very next day.

  They all came: the entire family, not surprisingly since most of them were largely dependent upon the business for their income. Charles, of course, looking thoroughly peeved and disgruntled; one or two cousins and elderly uncles; and the two aunts, his father’s unmarried sisters. Cissie, who hated to miss out on any fun, and Vera, a stickler for everything being just so, pin-neat and absolutely correct. Heavily involved in church affairs and the local community, she took her responsibilities very seriously indeed.

  So did Eliot. Nothing was more offensive to his trusting nature than fraud, particularly when it appeared to spring from within the company itself, possibly within the family.

  He’d requested a private interview with Charles before the start of the meeting proper, and while the rest of the Tyson family enjoyed coffee and a little chit-chat, the two brothers stood facing each other in the office. Eliot came straight to the point. ‘I’d like to know why, exactly, you have chosen to undermine my business?’

  Taken aback by the unexpectedness of this assault on his integrity, Charles coloured up, his be-whiskered cheeks turning to a fiery red. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I think you do, Charles, so you can stop the blustering act of outraged innocence. Come on, tell me. I’m waiting to hear.’ Eliot’s attitude towards his brother had always been one of resigned tolerance. He knew Charles wasn’t driven by ambition, as their father had been, but by greed. He was selfish and profligate, a spoiled child who’d been brought up to expect everything in his idle life to be handed over without any effort on his part.

  Eliot had no intention of making excuses for Charles, nevertheless much of this attitude was their father’s fault. Having endured a long, tough climb up from the gutter, George had been insistent that his own sons would never need to struggle so hard, or sacrifice so much. Success had been all consuming, although sadly he’d allowed these ambitions to run out of control and a genuine desire to create a better life for the family had finally split it apart. This had affected George so badly, it made him even more determined to keep his sons out of trade. By the end of his life he’d done a complete about face and turned into the kind of snob he’d once ridiculed and loathed.

  There was a warning there, certainly, but perhaps, Eliot thought, he’d protected Charles from reality too well. He should be more honest with him and make him see things as they really were; the true legacy that George had left his sons.

  ‘Haven’t I always been fair with you, seen that you were provided with well paid employment as junior partner, plus a handsome share in the profits?’

  ‘I should have got my cut of the profits, as the aunts do, without needing to work.’

  ‘Don’t be childish, Charles. Everyone needs to work, even you. How else could you afford to finance your extravagant lifestyle? Despite your laziness I did my best for you and yet you’ve cheated on me like any common-or-garden thief. What is your reasoning behind this attempt to defraud my company?’

  ‘There you have it!’ Charles burst out. ‘Listen to yourself. My business! My company! If I were guilty as charged, and I do not admit - not for one moment - that I am, wouldn’t that be the reason? Your constant reference to Tyson’s as if it belonged exclusively to you.’

  Eliot frowned. ‘It does belong exclusively to me. Like it or not, that is the situation. The company is run by me, and I bear sole responsibility for it. Perhaps I didn’t do the job particularly well in the past while I was learning the ropes, but then Father gave me little enough training. Nevertheless, it has provided you with employment, and profit, from the few shares you own in it, as it has for several other members of the family. Now, I ask you again, Charles, and I recommend you measure your words carefully before you reply - why are you attempting to steal my profits? Do not lie, or prevaricate. It’s too late for that, since I’m in full possession of the facts.’

  ‘Then why ask?’ Charles said, sounding at his most disgruntled while still endeavouring to give every impression he wasn’t in the least concerned. He sensed a prickle of sweat between his shoulder blades as he began to worry about where all this might be leading.

  ‘I am aware of your need to borrow, Charles, in order to finance your over-blown lifestyle. But I hoped to see an improvement in that direction, thinking you might become more sensible with a growing family to consider. That is, until I examined the company accounts more closely. I must say your bank has been most discreet, although the manager did hint that he’d advanced you funds recently. What is it for this time? Racehorses, or that damned steam yacht your wife is obsessed with?’

  Charles spluttered with fury. ‘Don’t speak of Lucy in those disparaging tones. What exactly are you accusing me of, because if you think I’ve come here to be insulted, then . . .’

  ‘Shut up, Charles, and listen, for once without interrupting.’ Eliot leaned back comfortably in his leather chair and waved his brother to a seat with a gesture of barely disguised impatience. Charles ignored the offer, preferring to pace back and forth on the office rug, fighting for control, putting his hands in his pockets rather than wringing them as he itched to do.

  Eliot was saying, ‘The facts are that not all of the profits have been put through the books. Someone has been siphoning them off. My suspicions were aroused to such an extent that I set in motion numerous enquires, and didn’t much care for what I discovered. In short, some person or persons unknown, or at least as yet unproven, have set up their own currying business, using my profits as capital to fund the enterprise. This - anonymous individual - has taken over the old firm we used to use, Marshall and Stone, and are rapidly expanding and modernising.’ A slight pause as he met his brother’s troubled gaze. ‘Now, who do you think that might be, Charles? Any ideas?’

  ‘Damn you to hell, Eliot.’ Charles was running a hand through his hair in a most agitated fashion and sweat was pouring down his face.

  ‘Do I take that as a confession?’

  ‘Take it as you damned well please. I owe you nothing. Not a damn thing. I’ve worked my guts out for you, and you’ve paid me a pittance in return.’

  ‘I don’t recall you ever sweating quite so much toiling over your desk, Charles, as you are doing now. Why is that?’

  Animosity crackled dangerously between the two men. Enraged by the calm in his brother’s tone, Charles slammed a fist down on the desk between them. ‘That’s because you shut me out, drat you! You tell me nothing of what’s going on. I’m never consulted on matters of policy, changes of style, new designs or anything.’

  ‘Good heavens, it never occurred to me that you might have the necessary flair, Charles. Perhaps it is somewhat remiss of me, but I don’t see you as an expert on fashion, however much of a dandy you might consider yourself.’

  ‘Don’t use your blasted sarcasm on me.’ Charles was shouting now, and Eliot flapped a hand at him, warning him to lower his voice if he didn’t want the whole works to be made aware of their quarrel.

  ‘I don’t care who hears, the more the better so far as I’m concerned. I did what I had to do and . . .’ Charles stopped, having the wit to see that he was cornered. He’d damned himself from his own lips. He was furious that in trying to protect his family’s future from what he perceived as a very real and dangerous threat, h
e’d left himself open to the accusation of fraud. He should have denied it all, kept quiet. It was doubtful Eliot would have been able to prove a thing. Hadn’t Swainson assured him of that when they’d conceived the whole scheme together? He shuddered to think what Lucy’s reaction would be when he explained that the purchase of the yacht, let alone the motor car they hoped to buy to drive them back and forth to the Lake Windermere house, was well and truly off. ‘Dammit, I’ll not see my family impoverished.’

  Eliot got briskly to his feet, beginning to lose patience with this grasping, obstinate brother of his, and deciding to take a firmer line. ‘The point is, Charles, I cannot allow you to bleed the company dry. If you were short of money for good reason, you should have asked me for help. If it is simply to maintain the house by the lake that you neither need nor can afford, then you are nothing less than selfish and avaricious. Wouldn’t we all enjoy such a treat, but we have to be sensible. The business is not as strong or as healthy as you might imagine. Father lost his touch at the end, took on too many orders which couldn’t be properly fulfilled because of too few staff and inadequate administrative control. The result was damaging to the company. He made a mess of things at the end because he simply wasn’t well enough to cope. I inherited a mass of problems.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake. There’s no talking to you. I still don’t understand why you would choose to steal from me in that underhand way. Why not discuss your problems in a mature way? Despite our different temperaments I thought we rubbed along well enough and I do believe you’ve been paid a proper rate. There are certainly plenty who would be glad of such an excellent income. The fact you can’t control your expensive wife is your problem, and not mine.’

  ‘How dare you insult Lucy? At least she has given me a son who is legitimately mine, and not a by-blow from some cheap little tart!’

  Eliot jerked as if he’d been struck and it was a mark of his supreme self control that he managed not to plant one furiously clenched fist on to his brother’s arrogant nose. He drew in a long, steadying breath though his tone was glacial. ‘I shall choose to ignore that most offensive remark on the grounds that you are angry and upset, and not thinking clearly. Had anyone but my own brother said those words, the outcome might have been very different. As it is, I suggest it would be for the best if you tendered your resignation forthwith, then we’ll say no more on the matter. No doubt you would prefer to devote your time to this new project of yours in any case, and I’m sure neither of us has any wish to call in the police. Will you explain all of this to the board, or shall I?’

  ‘The police?’

  ‘You have committed fraud, Charles, that is an offence.’

  Charles was flabbergasted. This was all getting quite out of hand, the last thing he’d expected. To be so peremptorily dismissed, threatened with the police for God’s sake? It was unthinkable. ‘If I’m not given what I rightly deserve, why shouldn’t I help himself?’

  Eliot sighed heavily. ‘Because it was never yours in the first place.’

  ‘But it should have been. Tyson’s Shoe Manufactory should have been ours equally, or it should have been sold to provide enough money for us to live on for the rest of our lives, as Father promised. Instead, you stole the lot. Robbed me of my rightful inheritance.’

  Eliot had heard enough. ‘For Christ’s sake Charles, our father didn’t leave the company to me either. You know damn well that he didn’t want either of us to have it. Nor, if it had been sold, would it have brought in sufficient funds for us to live in idleness for the rest of our lives. Wanting us to be gentlemen was a foolish fantasy. Father was living in a dream world. There was never enough money for that. Funds would soon have dried up.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It’s true! I wasn’t left the company at all. In effect I bought it off him. He said if I wanted it, I would have to pay for it. I had it valued, worked for nothing for all the three years he was ill, and the money I should have earned, plus the sum of money I was meant to inherit on his death, every last penny of it, was used as part payment for the company. The rest I borrowed from the bank. You had the Windermere mansion and a sizeable chunk of father’s money. I got Tyson Lodge. Everything else, the company, the machines and good will, the very land the factory stands on, I’ve had to pay for, am still paying for in regular payments to the bank. So, in effect, your inheritance was far greater than mine. Yes, Father did finally agree to let me have the business, but not till he’d bled me, and it, nearly dry. That’s the kind of man he was. Obsessive, utterly selfish, and jealous. You had to do things his way or pay the price.’

  Charles’s mouth twisted into a vicious sneer. ‘I don’t believe a word of it. More likely you bullied and bribed Father into leaving you the business, not actually paying a penny for it. You just wanted it all for yourself.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, what is the use of talking to you.’

  ‘I’m damned if I’ll make things easy for you, Eliot. The board needs to be told how you mean to hand over Tyson’s to some pauper child you’ve adopted on a whim. The child of your mistress, dammit!’

  Eliot’s tone took on a hard, cutting edge. ‘I warned you, Charles, to think before you open your mouth. Take care, or you might live to seriously regret those words.’

  ‘No, I bloody won’t!’ he roared. ‘You’ve deliberately set out to ruin me, and my family, by adopting this workhouse child. Father would turn in his grave. And as for Mother, I shudder to think what she would say. Lucy believes that it is sheer desperation which has driven you and Amelia to such lengths, but we’ll not let you get away with it. We’ll not have some snotty-nosed bastard deprive our own children of their rightful inheritance. I’ll fight you through every court in the land, if I have to.’

  ‘You don’t seem to have understood a word I’ve said. The company is not your children’s rightful inheritance.’

  Charles wasn’t listening. He was roaring at the top of his voice. ‘I’m damned if I’ll apologise for awarding myself a greater share of what should have been mine in the first place.’ At which point he stormed out of the office, leaving the door swinging open.

  Aunt Vera, Aunt Cissie and all the uncles and cousins stood in the hall watching open-mouthed as he departed the building in a lather of temper. After a small, telling silence, Vera said, in her calmest tones. ‘He always was an impetuous boy with a penchant for tantrums. Now Eliot, I do hope you are ready to begin this meeting. I have two more before the day is out, one for the Church fête and the other for the repairs to the vicarage roof. Can we get along now, please?’

  Chapter Eleven

  The day Callum was up and dressed, happily playing with his bricks on the nursery rug, was the day Amelia made it clear to Kate that if she was to keep her position, then in future she must obey orders to the letter.

  ‘We’ve had a close shave. We might easily have lost him, and all because you took a foolish risk. You must have known that your friend would take him into her home, and you, Kate, above all people, know well enough what that home is like. It was a very dangerous, thoughtless thing to do.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ There was no point in arguing, or defending her reasons, since Kate agreed whole-heartedly. She was ashamed, stricken to the heart by her own folly. It had been a stupid thing to do, and all for nothing.

  Kate’s fears over Dermot having been drowned proved to be entirely unfounded. Someone must have been alerted by her enquiries, because before the week was out a note had been handed in at the kitchen door. It was written by Clem in his fine, sloping hand, stating Dolly had turned up to explain that Dermot was working in Liverpool. He was sorry for not having written to tell Kate where he was, but that he’d been working all summer as a deckhand on board one of the ships on the Mersey. The note went on, ‘Dolly says that he’s now settled back in Ireland where he hopes to start his own business, once he has a bit put by. She intends to join him there by the New Year.’

&n
bsp; ‘And good riddance to bad rubbish,’ was Kate’s furious reaction to the news. ‘Making me worry me head off all this time. Dolly is welcome to you. She’ll have her work cut out trying to make something of you, if’n ye ever manage to save more than a penny piece.’ No doubt he was at this very moment swilling back the whiskeys in Donegal, so there was fat chance in Kate’s unblinkered view. Oh, but she’d miss the daft eejit, so she would. Who knows when she’d ever see him again? Her own brother, the only family she had left. Wouldn’t it be grand to go back to Ireland with him? But how could she? Not without Callum. Kate felt so alone, so dependent upon the Tyson’s that at times it filled her with fear. If they ever tired of her, or she did something foolish which offended them, they’d turn her out. Oh, but that didn’t bear thinking about. She must never make such a mistake again, for the prospect of losing her position, of being sent away and banished from this house, never to see her lovely Callum again, was more terrible than she dared contemplate.

  And if that put her in daily contact with temptation in the shape of Amelia’s husband, then she’d just have to go more regularly to mass and say a few extra Hail Mary’s for the sake of her soul.

  It took Charles almost two whole weeks before he finally plucked up the courage to tell Lucy what had occurred, continuing to go out every morning and returning at odd hours to throw her off the scent. Then one day she confronted him about a rumour she’d heard at Mrs Hetherington’s tea table, and that had been it. He’d been forced to own up to the truth. She went white to the gills, picked up a vase and threw it at his head. Admittedly, it was not one of her favourites but even so, she burst into noisy tears, blaming him for the loss of it, screaming that he shouldn’t have ducked but caught it, and now look what he’d made her do.

  ‘How dare you come home and tell me you have been sacked like some common factory hand!’ Reaching behind her, her hands closed around a rather nice French ormolu clock and she threw that too, followed by a Royal Worcester figurine and a cut glass decanter. All Charles could do was duck and dive to avoid being decapitated, but if he didn’t stop her soon it was going to cost him a small fortune to replace all the broken items.