Without Sin

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘Why, Mrs Rodwell, you’re out late – and with the baby too. Come in, come in. Let me make you some tea.’

  Miss Pinkerton bustled about her tiny kitchen and when they were sitting on either side of the fireplace in her front room, Meg said, ‘Miss Pinkerton, I’ll come straight to the point. I’m being evicted by the Finches.’

  ‘Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry, but I have to say I’m not surprised. Clara Finch is a vindictive woman.’ It was the second time that word had been used about Clara, Meg thought, but she said nothing about the latest reason for Clara’s wrath. Miss Pinkerton believed that Miss Finch was still seeking revenge for what she considered a miscarriage of justice. ‘So where will you go? What will you do?’

  ‘I wondered if you would be interested in taking over the shop.’

  ‘Oh!’ The little woman nearly dropped her teacup in her surprise and blinked rapidly behind the thick lenses of her spectacles. Her reaction reminded Meg suddenly of Percy and she realized just how much she was missing her kindly protector. When she’d recovered a little, Miss Pinkerton shook her head. ‘Oh, dear me, no. I’m too old to take on something like that. And besides,’ she bit her lip. ‘I may have to give up dressmaking altogether sooner than I had anticipated.’ She touched the rim of her spectacles. ‘My eyesight, you know. The fine stitching is getting too much for me.’ She looked down at her hands holding the cup in her lap. ‘I, too, am beginning to lose business.’

  Meg’s mind was working quickly. She leant forward. ‘So why don’t we join forces?’

  Miss Pinkerton raised her head. ‘I – don’t understand.’

  ‘You could still serve in a shop, couldn’t you, whilst I took on all the sewing? Percy taught me a lot. I used to do quite a bit for him.’

  ‘Dressmaking isn’t the same as tailoring.’

  ‘But I can sew well. And I still have Percy’s sewing machine. He taught me how to use it. Don’t you see? You could soon teach me dressmaking.’

  ‘But Miss Finch? If she knew, wouldn’t she . . .?’ Miss Pinkerton’s voice trailed away.

  ‘She needn’t know. I wouldn’t be in the shop but in the back, or when I find another place to rent I could work at home, just like you always have.’

  ‘But I’m too old—’

  ‘How old are you?’ Meg asked candidly.

  ‘Fifty-five.’

  ‘And what are you going to do for the rest of your life? How are you going to earn a living?’

  ‘I – don’t know. That’s what’s been worrying me. I own this house. My aunt left it to me, but once that’s gone—’

  ‘It’ll be the workhouse,’ Meg said bluntly. She saw the little woman shudder and pressed home her point. ‘But it needn’t be like that. I can give you advice about the shop. It’s only failing because Miss Finch has set all her friends against me.’

  ‘I know,’ Miss Pinkerton said. ‘She’s tried to stop me doing any alteration work for you.’

  Meg’s face was grim. ‘So you know I’m telling you the truth. I haven’t failed in the business. I’ve been hounded out of it. The only problem I’ve got is finding somewhere else to live. They’re turning me out of my home as well.’

  ‘Well, you could come here,’ Miss Pinkerton ventured tentatively, but Meg shook her head. ‘No. It’s very kind of you, but if we’re to do this together and try to keep it from Miss Finch I could hardly live here, could I? She’d never let you take on the shop if she thought you were having anything to do with me.’

  Miss Pinkerton’s face brightened. ‘I have a cousin lives in the street – Laurel Street – behind your shop. In fact’ – she was getting quite excited now. Two spots of colour burned in her cheeks – ‘I think if you go out of Florrie’s yard and walk a little way along the passageway that runs between the backyards, you can get into Mr Rodwell’s – oh, I’m sorry, I still think of it as his.’ The little woman noticed Meg’s puzzlement. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not explaining myself very well. My cousin lives alone since she lost her husband and she lets out two rooms, more for the company than anything else.’ She leant forward as she added, ‘And her last lodger has just left. She’s looking for someone else.’

  ‘But would she mind having a baby in the house?’

  ‘Mind? She’d be thrilled, but you’d have to be prepared for the possibility that you might lose him.’

  Meg’s eyes widened and her heart thumped. Surely Miss Finch hadn’t . . . ? But behind her spectacles, Miss Pinkerton’s eyes were twinkling. ‘My cousin, Florrie, will likely take complete charge of him.’

  Meg smiled as she relaxed and murmured, ‘I shall be very glad of her help.’

  Forty-Eight

  Events moved much faster than even Meg had dared to hope. Eliza Pinkerton took only two days to accept Meg’s suggestion that she should take over the shop. The little spinster suddenly seemed revitalized, finding a new purpose in her drab, monotonous life.

  ‘I have a little money put by,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I can pay off all your suppliers, although I won’t be paying Theobald Finch your back rent.’

  ‘I think he’ll be only too pleased to relet the shop so quickly – and to be rid of me.’ Meg told Eliza the current rent and advised, ‘Don’t let him put it up much more than that.’

  ‘I won’t. And now I’ll take you to meet my cousin.’

  Meg was apprehensive. What if Miss Pinkerton’s cousin did not want such a scandalous woman beneath her roof? She need not have worried. Florrie Benedict was round and jolly – a big woman with an even bigger heart. She was energetic and forthright to the point of bluntness, but that frankness was tempered with a ready laugh.

  ‘Oh, so you’re the scarlet woman I’ve heard so much about. Bowling poor Percy Rodwell off his feet and pinching him from under Clara Finch’s nose.’ She laughed heartily, a deep belly laugh. ‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.’ She pulled a comical face. ‘I’ve no time for the woman, never have had. And the power she and her brother wield in this town – well – there ought to be a law against it. My late husband worked for the council for a while and what Theobald Finch used to push through in the council meetings was nobody’s business. Ought to have been investigated, if you ask me.’ She laughed again. ‘Still, nobody ever did. Now, let’s have a look at this little babby of yours. See if we can tek to each other . . .’

  Florrie took the child into her arms, nestling him against her ample bosom. She walked up and down the room with him, crooning softly. ‘We’ll get along just fine, won’t we, my little man?’ Looking up, she demanded, ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Robert Jake.’

  Florrie’s smile broadened. ‘Now fancy that. My little grandson’s called Robert. Isn’t that strange? But my daughter lives down south and I don’t see them very often.’ She looked down again at the baby lying placidly in her arms. ‘You’ll be my little Robbie here, won’t you?’ As if answering her, the baby gurgled and waved his arms about and Florrie laughed loudly.

  Meg moved her few belongings from Percy’s house to Florrie’s. The two rooms she’d been given upstairs were well furnished, so there was little in the way of furniture she needed to keep. It had belonged to Percy’s parents, so was old and worn, and she sent most of it to the local saleroom, where it raised her a few precious shillings. For the first time since Percy had died Meg felt safe. She wanted to live quietly, away from prying eyes and vicious tongues. The fewer people who knew where she was the better. Eliza and Florrie revelled in the intrigue. Eliza didn’t want the Finches to know Meg’s whereabouts any more than Meg did. For the first time in her life Eliza Pinkerton was someone. She was the proprietor of a genteel shop and – with Clara Finch’s innocent backing – her business flourished.

  ‘I’m pleased to see you here, Miss Pinkerton. You deserve to do well. I’d just like to know where that little hussy has disappeared to. She still has something I want. Something I want very badly. If you hear word of her, you will let me know, won’t you?’

  Clara f
ixed the little woman with her steely stare, but Eliza blinked behind her thick glasses and smiled back innocently. ‘Of course, Miss Finch. Now, may I show you my new line of gloves . . .’

  Florrie, too, revelled in the deception. It was she who took Robert out in an old perambulator and all she said if anyone enquired about the baby was, ‘Oh, this is little Robbie.’ It’s not my fault, she told herself, if they think it’s my grandson come to stay with me for a while, now is it?

  During the following months, Meg was perhaps the happiest she had been since that dreadful night her father had come home with the news that they must leave their home. Eliza gave her plenty of work and with practice, and under the dressmaker’s patient guidance, Meg became skilled with her needle and with Percy’s sewing machine. She rarely left the house during the daytime, but took exercise as dusk fell.

  So life continued in the little terraced house, and if Meg was not exactly happy, then at least she was content.

  There was only one person she really missed seeing – Jake. It hurt her to think that he would not even know where she was and, worse still, that he wouldn’t even care.

  Betsy considered herself the happiest woman alive. She had a husband whom she adored, she had the Smallwoods, who treated her like a daughter, and she had a beautiful baby girl of her own. If she still harboured doubts about Jake’s love for her, she kept them buried deep. They never spoke of Meg, yet sometimes she caught Jake with a faraway look in his eyes and wondered if he was thinking about the vivacious girl he had loved. Did he love her still? Betsy tried not to think about it. At such times she would draw his attention to the baby. His eyes would soften and he would take the child into his arms and gaze at her as if he too couldn’t quite believe his luck. There was certainly no doubting Jake Bosley’s love for his daughter.

  Letitia still came to the farm with the excuse of seeing the baby, yet Betsy knew it was still Jake that the matron came to see. Her gaze followed him everywhere and deep in her eyes there was sadness and a look of longing. Betsy, fulfilled and ecstatic in her role as a mother, felt sympathy for the unmarried, middle-aged woman, who would never know motherhood. Happily, secure and content now, Betsy did not begrudge Letitia her visits to the farm and her time spent with her precious boy and his new daughter.

  It was as if Letitia had adopted the child as her granddaughter and when Jake and Betsy asked her, along with Mabel and George Smallwood, to stand as godparents for baby Fleur, the matron wept with joy.

  They chose Fleur’s christening day with care. ‘We’ll have it on the Sunday nearest to the first anniversary of armistice day,’ Jake decided as he cradled his daughter.

  ‘We’re the lucky ones. Me and the doctor. We came back, but there’s many a family with no cause for celebration. So many bairns,’ he murmured, looking down in wonder at the child in his arms, ‘who’ll never see their fathers again.’

  Betsy rested her head against his shoulder and wrapped her arms around Jake and the baby. ‘I know, but you’re here and you mustn’t feel guilty because you survived. You owe it to all those men who died to make a good life – with us.’ Betsy was determined to drive any thoughts of Meg out of his mind. She was very afraid that he still thought of the strong, wilful, passionate girl and she was right.

  Even on the day of the christening, Meg was there, a shadow at the feast, though Jake prayed that no one else would guess. He had no idea where she was now and believed that perhaps she’d left the district. It hurt him to think that feelings were so bad between them that she had not even said goodbye. He’d have liked one last chance to make things right. On this happy day, it saddened him to think they had parted in such bitterness.

  God bless you, Meggie, he prayed silently, wherever you are.

  Things might have continued happily if Clara Finch had not been so determined to get her own way. After several months she was still no nearer finding out what had happened to the child she believed was rightly hers. In her twisted mind, she almost came to believe that he was hers, that she had actually given birth to Percy’s child and that wicked girl had snatched him away from her.

  At night she paced the floor of her bedroom, growing more and more agitated and creating her own fantasy world. ‘He’s mine, he’s mine.’ The words became like a mantra which she chanted in her mind.

  The boy – wherever he was – was growing without the love of his rightful mother. Christmas and New Year had come and gone. Time was passing and he’d be almost nine months old already.

  Theobald didn’t realize the depth of his sister’s inner turmoil. If he had, perhaps he’d have done something about it. But Theobald Finch was happy to turn a blind eye to Clara’s ravings. He was content to rule the roost as the chairman of the board of guardians at the workhouse, to get his own way in the town council chamber, to drink with his friends, to go to race meetings and to collect the rents from all the properties he owned in the town. The only excitement he craved, apart from seeing the horse he’d backed romp home in first place, was the acquisition of more property.

  ‘There’s a row of houses in Laurel Street coming up for auction. Chap who owned them has died and the family want the money to divide between them,’ he told his sister one evening over dinner, as they sat at either end of the long dining table. ‘Should we bid for them? What do you think?’

  Clara rose from the table, leaving her pudding untouched. She was especially agitated tonight. ‘Oh, I can’t enter into that now. I’ve far too much on my mind. You do what you think best, Theo. I really don’t mind.’

  Frowning slightly, Theobald watched her leave the room, but as the butler refilled his wine glass, he forgot all about his sister and her strange behaviour. ‘Women!’ was all he muttered.

  Forty-Nine

  The news of her landlord’s death had thrown Florrie into a turmoil. ‘His family are putting the whole row of houses up for auction.’

  ‘You mean we’re going to be evicted?’ Meg’s face paled.

  Florrie scanned the letter she had received from Mr Snape, who was her landlord’s solicitor. ‘No – no, it says we’ll be treated as “sitting tenants”, whatever that means.’

  Meg felt the fear subside. ‘I think it means the ownership of the properties will change, but they’ll take you on as their tenant. I heard Percy mention something about it once. I shouldn’t worry—’ she began, but then stopped.

  Florrie was looking up from the letter with troubled eyes.

  ‘What? What is it?’ Meg asked.

  ‘They – they want details of all the occupants of the house.’

  The two women stared at each other and Meg felt her security slipping away. ‘What are we going to do?’ she whispered, her eyes wide.

  Florrie bit her lip. ‘I don’t know. We must talk to Eliza.’

  But Miss Pinkerton had no ready solution either.

  ‘You see,’ Florrie explained, ‘folks round here must be wondering whether little Robbie is really my grandson, since he’s here all the time. No one’s asked any awkward questions yet, but . . .’ She left the unspoken words hanging in the air.

  Meg finished the sentence for her. ‘But they might if you’ve got to put down in writing who’s living with you.’

  Florrie nodded. ‘I’m a straightforward sort of person, Meg. Never been frightened to say what I think, but I’ve never liked telling deliberate lies. Oh yes, I’ve been happy to go along with our little deception because it’s what others have chosen to think. I’ve never had to lie about you being here. So it’s never bothered me. But now . . .’ Again she did not finish her sentence.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t ask you to lie for me,’ Meg said in a small voice, hoping in vain that Florrie would offer to do just that. When the offer was not forthcoming, Meg sighed and murmured, ‘Perhaps I should think about moving away from here.’

  ‘What do you mean, you can’t find them?’

  The hapless private detective whom Clara had hired stood in the middle of her drawing room, twirling his tri
lby between nervous fingers. ‘I’ve made every endeavour, Miss Finch.’

  Clara clicked her tongue against her teeth in exasperation. ‘I doubt that, Mr Gregory, I really doubt that.’

  ‘I don’t think they can still be in this area, ma’am.’

  ‘You don’t think. You don’t think! Mr Gregory, I’m paying you to be certain. And then I’m paying you to find out where exactly they are.’ She paused and her eyes narrowed. ‘Have you, for instance, asked Dr Collins if they’re still on his list of patients?’

  ‘Er – well – yes, ma’am, but doctors won’t divulge any information about their patients.’

  ‘But you did ask him?’

  The man nodded. Clara’s eyes gleamed. ‘Then, to me, that means they’re still here somewhere. If they weren’t, he’d have said so. That wouldn’t be divulging confidential information, surely.’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Well, I do. They’re still here. Somewhere – they’re still here, I’m sure of it.’ She was talking more to herself now than to the man. Suddenly she remembered that he was still standing there, awaiting her instructions. She pursed her mouth and said sarcastically, ‘But it seems you aren’t going to find them if you have, as you say, made every endeavour. So.’ She rose and went to a small bureau from which she extracted some money. ‘Here’s your final payment. I no longer require your services.’

  ‘Oh, but—’

  ‘No buts, Mr Gregory. If you haven’t found them after three months, then I don’t think you’re going to. I’ve paid you a lot of money and got nowhere and wasted a lot of time in the process. Good day to you.’

  Mr Gregory knew himself dismissed.

  After he’d gone, Clara paced the floor. Where now? Who could she turn to for help? Not her brother. She hadn’t told him of her plans to take Meg’s child and bring him up as her own. Theobald would be horrified, but he wouldn’t – couldn’t – stand in her way. Clara smiled grimly to herself. There were plenty of secrets from Theobald’s past that she knew he would not want revealing. No, her brother wouldn’t have a say in the matter.