The Girl From Poorhouse Lane

by Freda Lightfoot

  As Kate broke the news, these thoughts flashed through her head, but Millie simply gave a rueful smile and said, ‘We’ll manage, love. What’s one more, with all this lot?’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Lucy sat in the small parlour, looking as if the sky had fallen in on her head. She couldn’t believe her own ears. This was the most appalling news. Not at all what she’d expected. ‘Would you mind repeating that, Eliot. You say you have given a large sum of money to the nursemaid? Our money, which we need to save the company.’

  Aunt Cissie made a clucking sound with her tongue which sent the two dogs at her feet into a frenzy of excitement. Aunt Vera seemed to have lost the power of speech altogether, sitting bolt upright with her copy of John Halifax Gentleman, which she’d been reading when called to this interview, clutched tightly on her lap.

  ‘I believe that it is actually my money, but yes, that is what I have done. I thought you’d be pleased to hear that she is to be properly provided for. I believed it appropriate, considering what she has lost. Her son, after all.’

  Lucy balled her fists, sat forward in her seat and spat her next words at him. ‘You can’t do that. You simply cannot do it. We need every penny for ourselves. What has she lost? Some pauper brat of no account. No doubt she’ll have another baby to fill his place before the year is out. Those sort of people breed like rabbits.’

  The muscles in Eliot’s face tightened dangerously as he regarded his sister-in-law with frost-filled eyes. ‘Might I remind you, this is my son you are speaking of so dismissively, even if he isn’t the child of my loins.’

  ‘Oh dear! Deary, deary me,’ Aunt Cissie said, sounding flustered, and both maiden ladies shuddered, not wishing to examine matters quite so intimately as these two seemed able to do.

  Eliot felt a stirring of pity for them: for their inflexibility, their mulish snobbery, and their very obvious greed in wanting everything he owned to go to them. Perhaps that wasn’t quite so true in the case of the aunts, but he was perfectly aware that it was so with Lucy. She’d made no secret from the start that she resented the adoption, that she believed Tyson’s Shoe Manufactory should go to her own children. Well, she must simply accustom herself to a bitter disappointment. He’d no intention of ever allowing them to have it.

  He manufactured a patient smile. ‘As well as the money, I also intend to set her up with decent accommodation. A house somewhere other than Poor House Lane, which is an appalling place to live. Have you ever set foot in there, Lucy? Aunts? I have, and I do assure you that you would not like to. It’s a festering sore which should be a source of shame to this town. Those cottages need to be razed to the ground, and will be if I have any say in the matter.’

  Completely ignoring the philanthropic aspect of his statement, Lucy stared at him as if he’d run mad. ‘A house of her own? A vast over-reaction, surely. She gave up the child willingly, used him as a means to gain herself employment. And can you afford to be so generous? Can we? Haven’t we done enough for the girl already? How much will all of this charity cost, for absolutely no return or benefit?’ Lucy paused as if a thought had struck her, and then cast him a sideways glance, pressing her lips into a knowing smile. ‘Ah, is it perhaps because you intend to set her up as your mistress, is that the way of it? I’ve heard the rumours. Dear me, I’m surprised at you, Eliot. And so soon.’

  Aunt Vera gave a low hiss deep in her throat and, having found her voice, it came out deep and gruff and condemning. ‘I hope not indeed. Poor dear Amelia would turn in her grave.’

  Cissie simply sank into yet another litany of ‘oh dears’, varying them only with, ‘What a muddle, what a muddle!’ The two pointers whimpered in sympathy and licked her hand.

  Eliot turned away, not wishing anyone to see the flicker of guilt that he assumed would be present in his eyes for all to see, addressing his remarks to the view of the river through the parlour window. ‘Now you are talking ridiculous. She is a servant girl in need of help, nothing more. And if Amelia is watching, she will entirely agree with my decision. She would consider it entirely proper since she was ever practical and with a generous heart.’ He sincerely hoped his much lamented wife could not see how quickly he had replaced her. The shame of his actions were killing him, making him quite unable to concentrate on his work, or do anything properly. He prayed that once he’d set the girl up in safe and decent accommodation, he would finally be able to put her from his mind.

  Having got himself back under control, Eliot turned to confront the condemning faces of the women of his family, aware that the more they attempted to boss and organise him, the more he wanted rid of their presence in his home. ‘Kate O’Connor might be a thorn in the side of some with her prickly defensiveness and naïve way of viewing the world, but her heart is in the right place and she deserves better than we have given her. And you are wrong, Lucy, about her reason for giving up Callum, which was done with great reluctance on her part, and for the best of reasons.’

  ‘Huh!’

  ‘I rewarded her generosity and trust by neglecting him to such an extent he was stolen before my very eyes.’

  ‘Oh, he was a lovely little chap, it’s true.’ Aunt Cissie gave a little moaning cry and dabbed at her eyes so that both dogs attempted to climb onto her lap at once, in order to offer her comfort

  ‘Do stop it, Cissie,’ Vera scolded, and put those dratted animals down. What’s done is done and can’t be undone. And there really is no need, Eliot, for you to carry this burden of guilt on your shoulders. The girl should have been paying proper attention to her duties. Perhaps it was God’s way of telling you that the whole situation was wrong from the start, that you were never intended to father children, of any sort.’

  Eliot looked momentarily startled by this bleak assessment of his situation. ‘I trust you are wrong in that supposition, dear aunt. I had hoped that perhaps one day I may marry again. Who can say? I may yet have a nursery full of children, God willing.’

  Lucy regarded him with fresh horror. What was he implying? Surely he wasn’t suggesting that Kate O’Connor might fit into that role? Not for a moment had she imagined such a possibility. A new bride of any sort would be bad enough, before she’d had the opportunity to put the rest of her plan into effect. Lucy held fond hopes of finding him a comfortable, mature wife, one unlikely to give him children. The very idea of the nursemaid - the girl from Poor House Lane becoming mistress of this house, inheriting what her own sweet darlings should have, was utterly insupportable. It must not be allowed to happen. In addition to all other considerations, she was far too young, too fertile.

  ‘I am sure that when you have had the opportunity to think about my plan a little more, then you will agree it’s the right thing to do. We cannot be seen to take advantage of those less fortunate than ourselves. You understand, dear aunts? Lucy?’ He lifted one brow by way of cool enquiry. None of them answered.

  Eliot strode to the door, glanced back at the three women still bristling with censure and let out a small sigh of resignation. Why did no one ever appreciate that he wanted only to do what was right. Why did people always perceive some ulterior motive, some personal benefit to himself in what he did? His mistress indeed. The very idea. He inwardly shuddered at what they would say if they knew how close he had come to falling into that particular trap. What sort of employer would that make him? Oh, the folly that a man will commit in grief and despair. It was a relief, in a way, that the girl was no longer under his roof. She was far too attractive, too enchanting for words. Dangerously so. But Lucy was right in one respect, he couldn’t really afford to be so generous, yet felt he had to do something. How could he ignore her plight after all that had happened?

  ‘Oh, and I intend to continue searching for Callum, so pray keep your eyes and ears alert for news, if you please.’

  ‘You won’t find him,’ Lucy burst out and then flushed crimson as he frowned down upon her.

  ‘I trust you are wrong in that supposition, Lucy. He is my son a
fter all, and I love him. Good day to you all.’ As Eliot quietly closed the parlour door there was a moment of intense silence and then all three ladies began to talk at once. Eliot walked away with a small, troubled smile on his face.

  Thank God, Lucy thought, as Dennis drove her home later in the carriage, that she’d moved the dratted child far from Kendal. She shuddered to think what might happen if Eliot ever discovered the truth. Lucy was adamant that he wasn’t going to be allowed to give away Tyson money to a girl of the lowest class imaginable, who had no rights to it at all. It was an outrage which mustn’t be allowed to happen. Yet she felt utterly helpless, trapped in some sort of nightmare. She certainly hadn’t gone through all of that trauma to be robbed of what was rightfully hers in the end. She had to do some hard thinking, and fast!

  The bills were still mounting, seeming to come in as thick and fast as ever, with no end to them. How she was going to settle a half of them, she really didn’t know. And she must still find decent schools for the children. What a coward Charles was, to leave her in this mess. Drat men! Drat everyone! Livid with rage, she knocked everything off Charles’s desk with one furious sweep of her hand.

  Only when her storm of temper had subsided did she begin to see things more clearly. The answer was obvious. She should take a leaf out of the aunt’s book and move into Tyson Lodge, taking her children and maid with her. It seemed to suit them well enough, as they showed not a sign of returning to their own, humbler quarters. In fact, she’d heard Vera saying just the other day that she was thinking of letting out the house they owned in Heversham, since Eliot had so many empty rooms, and the poor man so dreadfully alone now that dear Amelia had passed away.

  ‘If he has so much money to throw around, he might as well throw some in my direction too,’ Lucy decided. She was family after all.

  Lucy flung open the door and shouted for her maid. The girl came running, as she’d learned to do whenever her mistress called. ‘Start packing. We’re moving to Tyson Lodge first thing in the morning.’

  It was as she turned back into the room that she spotted a folded sheet of paper which had apparently been tucked beneath the blotter. Picking it up, she read the note with care, read it twice in fact, eyes widening with interest, and then a small smile played at the corners of her mouth. So Charles had used the foreman, Swainson, in his plans. Clever Charles. Lucy didn’t view what her late husband had done as fraudulent or criminal in any way, only circumspect, a means to protect his family and provide a decent future for them. She slid the note into her skirt pocket and gave it a little pat of triumph. Whatever Charles could do, she could do better.

  What with her foolish brother-in-law going soft in the head, not to mention this nasty and persistent rumour of war in Europe; the world, in Lucy’s opinion, was running mad. It was indeed fortunate that she, at least, was holding on to her sanity. She would move into Tyson Lodge forthwith, and who knew where that might lead?

  It proved to be a wearisome pregnancy, the baby lying heavy, causing Kate to need to use the stinking privy more often than she would care to. She felt listless and tired much of the time, with none of the anticipatory joy which she’d felt when she’d been expecting Callum. Worst of all, she was a burden to Clem and Millie; as if they didn’t have enough mouths to feed without her imposing an extra one. She really didn’t care to think about what she would do when the baby came, and a part of her didn’t care. Yet she mustn’t give in. She must get this baby born then she could resume her search for Callum.

  Her time came, still with no sign of a birth being imminent, and somehow it reminded her bleakly of Amelia and her long pregnancy, which hadn’t been a pregnancy at all. The poor lady had suffered so much but, in the end, had nothing to show for her labours. Only Kate’s bruised ribs as the baby kicked and turned within her, served to remind her that her own situation was entirely different. There would indeed be a baby for her. Unfortunately he, or she, was simply taking a long time to make an appearance.

  Millie became increasingly concerned by the delay. ‘You’re a good two weeks overdue, long past time this bairn made an appearance. Here, take a sip of this, it’ll happen do the trick.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Only a nip of gin.’

  ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘Aye you do. Get it down you. We’ve got to get this baby out somehow, and it’ll make for an easier labour.’

  Miraculously, the very next day, Kate did indeed go into labour but it soon became clear that this wasn’t going to be the easy birth she’d experienced with Callum, or Millie had hoped for. Perhaps she didn’t quite have the energy she’d had then, her being half-starved and tired all the time, Kate thought, as she sweated and laboured, pushed and heaved when Millie told her to, breathed and coughed and panted at her instruction for hour upon hour with still no baby to show for her efforts.

  And the pain was dreadful. She could feel it washing over her, blotting out all thought, all will to survive. One minute Millie would shout: ‘I can see the head. It’s crowning. Push! Push!’ But then it would slip back, and Kate would feel too exhausted to go through all of that again.

  ‘Let me sleep for a little first.’

  ‘No, no, you can’t sleep. Come on, sit up. Try again. Childbirth is hard work. Wake up, Kate. Push, drat you!’ Millie knotted a sheet to the bed posts for Kate to hold on to, and Clem took the children outside so they wouldn’t get in the way. Kate pushed and shouted, cursed and swore, and even at one point, screamed out loud as the pain became unbearable, all to no avail. She couldn’t endure another moment, wanting desperately to sleep, to die.

  In her mind’s eye, she could see Callum grinning up at her, his cherubic face bathed in a golden glow, surrounded by a brilliant light and she wanted to reach out to him, to let some unseen hand pluck her from this bed to which she seemed to be stuck fast, and draw her into that glorious light.

  ‘Callum,’ she called, ‘I’m coming. Wait for Mammy.’

  White lipped, Millie ran to the door and shouted to Clem. ‘Run and fetch Eliot Tyson. We’ve struggled on us own long enough. It’s his child, drat it. Let him do something useful for a change, and make sure he fetches a doctor back with you, an’ all.’

  It was a girl, finally slithering into the world at two the following morning, yelling the place down as if demanding to know why they’d taken so long about it. The labour had certainly been longer and more painful than Kate could ever have imagined possible and yet survive, requiring the intervention of Doctor Mitchell at his most skilled, to pull the baby from her and stitch Kate up afterwards. She thought she might never walk, or move, again, watching with bleak indifference as the doctor washed and put away his instruments of torture. Then she looked across at the baby, lying serenely in the basket which had held all of Millie’s babies, and felt nothing for her either. There were bruises on her head which the doctor said would fade in time and really shouldn’t worry her. Kate wasn’t in the least bit worried. Why had he told her that? Had she asked? If so, then she couldn’t imagine why. The baby somehow had no connection with her at all. But then nothing did. She felt in a daze, numb with pain, with no clear idea of where she was, or how long she had lain on this bed, fighting this endless, pain filled, battle.

  There were voices in the room, raised in argument, though she didn’t trouble to determine whose, letting the sound drift in and out of her consciousness. And then a face swam into view, one she knew well, and a voice – firm and demanding - a persistent hand shaking her shoulder. ‘Kate, Kate wake up. See, you have a beautiful baby daughter.’

  She struggled to focus on the face, on the voice, cast a sideways glance up at him. He was smiling, his brown eyes warm on her face, all anger spent.

  ‘I want Callum,’ Kate stubbornly repeated, tears flooding her eyes and making his beloved image swim in a blur of colour.

  ‘Of course you do. We all do, and we will find him, I swear it.’

  He stroked her hair from the heat of her brow, rubb
ed away a tear with the back of his hand and she looked up at him in wonder. Did this mean that he cared for her a little, after all? He must have brought the doctor, come to her aid again when she most needed it. Would he carry her off to Tyson Lodge and love her as she so longed to be loved? His next words seemed to confirm this dream. ‘We must stop fighting each other over this loss we’ve both suffered, and what happened between us. It’s no good going over and over it. It’s done now, but I swear I won’t rest till I’ve found our little man.’

  Our little man. How she loved to hear him say that, linking all three of them together. ‘It’s been months. I tried so hard to find him but . . .’

  ‘I know, so did I. But perhaps you’ve been given another chance, to get it right this time. Just tell me, Kate, I need to know, whose child is she? Is she mine?’

  Kate was stunned, not quite believing that she heard right. What was he implying? That she lay with anyone?

  He was still talking, a feverish glow in his eyes. ‘The doctor says she’s fine, astonishingly so considering the circumstances, but if she truly is mine, I refuse to allow her to be brought up here. I can’t let you stay here either. We’ve been through too much together, Kate. Amelia would never forgive me if I didn’t see that you were both well looked after.’

  Been through too much! Was this evidence of yet more guilt? She gazed up into his face, willing him not to have said what she thought he’d said, for him to offer to look after her himself, aching for him to take her in his arms.

  ‘I’ve found you a pretty little cottage in a yard off Highgate. A clean and decent one, just as you’ve always dreamed of. A place where you’ll be safe and your baby can grow up healthy and strong. But you must tell me. I need to know. Lucy said you would have replaced Callum within the year, and it seems that she is right. So is the baby mine, or not?’