by Valerie Wood
‘I think we must go back,’ Isaac said nervously. ‘The crowd is too great. We’ll turn around and knock on someone’s door. It will be a start at least.’
The first door on which they knocked was in Vicar Lane, a quiet street near the ancient Holy Trinity church.
‘A respectable place,’ Isaac said. But it was so respectable a place that the residents of the house wouldn’t open the door to their knock. A twitch of curtain was the only indication of anyone’s presence within, and although they all thought they had seen a glow of candle flame as they approached, the house was now in darkness.
‘Here’s someone coming, Father. Should we ask?’ James’s voice was husky as he whispered.
Isaac nodded and called out to a man approaching them. The man stood back, he appeared as nervous as they were. ‘I’m looking for the family of an infant. The child has been abandoned or lost, it needs immediate attention if it is to survive.’
The man came closer and stared curiously at them. ‘If it’s been abandoned, then whoever abandoned it didn’t intend it to survive. Where did tha find it?’
‘Oh, er, out in the country.’ Isaac pulled up his coat collar and adjusted his scarf so that it hid the lower half of his face.
The man grunted and started to move away. ‘Then I don’t know why tha’s bringing it here, sir. If it’s a country bairn tha’d better look elsewhere. There’s enough starving infants round here without bringing ’em in from out of town.’ He walked away down the dark street and then turned back. ‘Tha could try workhouse, but I doubt if they’d tek it. They’re all full up and they’ll onny tek bairns from Hull.’
They moved out of that street and down others, and once more knocked on other doors, but again there was no answer except from the bark of a dog. They heard a cough and rattle of someone clearing his throat and saw the movement of a dark bundle huddled in a doorway, and they quickly turned away. Then came the sound of loud voices and a crowd of people turned the corner.
Women were laughing and Sammi determined that this time she would speak. ‘Uncle, please may I ask this time? They may tell me something, being another female.’
Her uncle nodded wearily. He was tired. He had had a busy day at the company. He was hungry and it seemed that he might have missed his supper. He was also angry with James, who was in such a stupor that he said hardly a word over this damnable affair. What was worse, he had to face Mildred when he got home and he didn’t know how he could.
‘I beg your pardon for intruding,’ Sammi began. ‘We’re looking for a woman – grandmother to this infant. The child has been abandoned and we wish to return him.’
‘Like a parcel!’ one of the men guffawed. ‘Lost and found.’
Sammi ignored him and turned to one of three women. ‘We understand that the baby’s mother has died, but he needs a nurse or he’ll die.’
‘Then it’s a pity he didn’t die with her.’ One of the women spoke up coarsely. ‘Death can’t be worse than ’workhouse.’
Another of the women came across to Sammi and undid the blanket wrapped around the child, and peered at him. She smelt of gin and Sammi turned her head away. ‘He’s not one of mine. And none of my mother’s have died this week, though I lost two a month ago. This is a new bairn, no more than a day old. Have a look, Ginny. See what tha thinks.’
The third woman moved forward slowly, and reluctantly, Sammi thought. She, too, looked down at the child, who was beginning to stir. She ran a rough finger across the child’s cheek and he moved his open mouth towards it. She glanced at Sammi and then back at the baby. ‘He’ll last a bit longer on milk and water, then tha must feed him on pobs if a nurse can’t be found.’
‘But we must find his family, he needs love as well as food,’ Sammi implored.
‘Maybe they can’t afford to love him, miss. It costs money to love a bairn, but maybe tha’s too young to know that. Too young and not poor enough.’ She was dressed shabbily, but her eyes were honest and she looked directly at Sammi and then at James and Isaac. ‘If there’s nobody to take care of him, then tha’ll have to take him to Charity Hall. They’ll take him. They’ll allus take them that nobody else wants.’
James’s mother was waiting for them on their return; she was wearing her bedgown and robe, and her eyes were red as if she had been weeping. She was angry and ashamed, she said, at the disgrace that James had brought on the family. ‘What will people think?’ she cried, as they told her that they had not been able to find the woman. ‘How can I possibly meet people if this scandal gets out?’
‘It won’t be the first time,’ Isaac said patiently. ‘I’m not diminishing what has happened, my dear, but I imagine that there are very few people whose lives could bear scrutiny.’ He put his hand out towards her. ‘There’s many a young woman slipped up!’
Mildred ignored his gesture. ‘James must go away for a while so that no-one hears of it.’ Her voice was hushed, but as Sammi watched her she thought that there was fear in her eyes. ‘If he wants to support the child out of his allowance, then that is up to him.’
‘But where will the child go, Aunt?’ Sammi appealed in vain to her aunt. ‘There’s only the workhouse or charity!’
Her aunt didn’t answer, but simply sat straight backed and stared in front of her. There was a clatter of wheels on the drive and Isaac shook his head impatiently. ‘I’m forever telling Gilbert not to come so fast up the drive. The gravel gets knocked all over the flower beds, but I can talk till I’m blue in the face for all the notice he takes!’
Gilbert was whistling cheerfully in the hall and he put his head around the door. ‘Hello! Still up at this hour?’
‘You’re very late, Gilbert. We expected you earlier!’ His mother spoke sharply.
‘But I told Father I wouldn’t be home; you didn’t wait supper? I’ve been to the house, I wanted to speak to the builder about some alterations that Harriet wants, and then I went on for a game of billiards.’ He bent to kiss his mother on the top of her head and as he did, he looked across at Sammi and winked.
He could get away with murder, Sammi thought. His mother’s favourite, whilst poor James— The two brothers were quite different in temperament as well as in physical attributes. Gilbert was self-assured, sociable, arrogant even sometimes. He was tall and athletic, and his side whiskers and his hair, which he hated, were red, like his father’s. James, on the other hand, was short and dark, like his mother, quiet and dreamy unlike her, and absent-minded to an irritating degree.
‘So what’s happening? I gather you’re not having a party.’ Gilbert looked quizzically round at them as they sat still and silent. ‘Sammi! You’ve been letting that young pup tear up Father’s newspapers?’
She shook her head and rose to leave the room. ‘If you will excuse me, Aunt Mildred, Uncle Isaac, I’m rather tired. I think I shall go to bed.’
‘I shall go too.’ Her aunt rose from her chair. ‘It has been a very tiring evening. No doubt you gentlemen will find plenty to discuss.’ She ignored James, sitting hunched in a chair, and swept out of the room.
Sammi gave a sympathetic nod to James, said goodnight to her uncle and Gilbert, and left them. She wanted to weep. The thought of the innocent baby, whoever he belonged to, spending the rest of its infant days unwanted in an institution, filled her with dread and pity. The lamp had been left lit in her bedroom and a fire burnt brightly, making the room, with its dark heavy furniture, look quite cosy. Mary had left a covered jug of water at the side of the bed, and a small silver cup and spoon which must have once belonged to the Rayner children.
Sammi leant over the makeshift crib at the side of her bed and thought of the woman who had brought him. ‘How desperate she must have been to leave you,’ she murmured. ‘And how sad to have lost her daughter.’ She suddenly wanted to see her own mother, to feel the comfort of her loving arms and to tell her of the great sadness which filled her whole being.
‘Something momentous has happened, Gilbert, so you’d better sit down.
James here has got into a spot of bother.’ Isaac outlined the evening’s events, starting with the woman coming to the house as it had been told to him, and finishing with their visit to Hull.
‘You never went searching for her, Father? Why, she’d be hidden away deep down some alleyway where you’d never find her. It’s some trick. Some mischief. It can never be true!’
‘I must go to bed.’ Isaac got up and put his hand across his eyes. ‘I am so weary and sick of the whole business. And I have an important meeting in the morning. You won’t forget, Gilbert, will you? I need you there.’
Both his sons rose. ‘I’m sorry, Father,’ James began, ‘so very sorry.’ His eyes filled with tears. He wouldn’t have upset his father for anything.
Isaac nodded, embarrassed at the show of emotion. ‘It’s your mother I’m sorry for. But you must find somewhere or somebody to take the child first thing tomorrow. I don’t know where,’ he said vaguely. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start. Perhaps one of the hospitals. Ask Sammi if she’ll go with you. Then we’ll talk in the evening about what you shall do, where you shall go. Your mother’s fixed on that, I fear.’ He cast a glance at James’s look of misery. ‘We’ll see what we can do.’
‘You blithering idiot, Jim,’ Gilbert remonstrated when their father had gone. ‘How did you get into such a scrape?’
‘I don’t know. The woman just said, “Are you young Rayner?” and when I said yes, she thrust the child at me.’ He started to pace the room. ‘The worst thing is that I can’t even remember it happening.’
‘Then it can’t be yours,’ his brother insisted. ‘It must be a prank. Somebody has given your name out instead of their own. But who would do such a dishonourable thing?’
‘No.’ James shook his head. ‘Father said I had to work back nine months, and when I did, I remembered.’
‘But you just said that you couldn’t remember!’
James blushed to his hair roots. ‘No, what I meant was that I couldn’t remember the er, the er, you know, it, happening with the girl. I can remember going up to the room; you remember, Gilbert? It was the night your engagement was announced and we stayed at The Cross Keys. That’s the only time that I’ve been drunk or out with a woman, so that must have been the time.’ He sat down again and sank his chin into his hands. ‘What a mess! I’ve ruined everything for everybody. And I can’t even remember what she looked like! She was pretty, I know that; but I can’t bring to mind a single feature or even the colour of her eyes.’
They were blue, Gilbert deliberated with alarm. The deepest, loveliest blue eyes I have ever seen, and her lashes were long and dark and thick and swept her cheeks when she closed her eyes. And now they’re saying she is dead!
‘Can you remember her, Gilbert? There were two girls, but one fell asleep on the floor and they had both gone when I awoke the next morning.’
Gilbert cleared his throat. ‘Like you say, she was pretty. Dark hair – not very tall, and slim, not much plumpness on her at all.’ She was so slender and fragile I could have picked her up with one hand, and her breasts were small and round. She was probably ill-fed, for when I brought her in … He recalled seeing her begging outside the inn. She had extended her hand as he’d passed, asking for a copper or two, and in fun he had grabbed it and held on to it. It was small and cold and she’d tried to pull it away.
There was something appealing in her eyes as she’d looked up at him, and impulsively he had invited her in for supper. ‘Bring your companion too,’ he’d said, for she’d looked questioningly at the shabby girl at her side.
I swear I never meant her any harm, he pledged silently as he stared at his ashen-faced brother. It was only meant as fun to begin with. I never meant to go so far.
She had been hungry, both girls were, but whereas her companion had torn into the bread and cheese and slices of beef, and drank thirstily of the ale that had been brought up to the room, she had eaten slowly, as if she was savouring the taste, but had no great appetite. And as she ate, she watched him warily from her great, luminous, shadowed eyes.
By the time she had finished eating, the other girl, with a loud belch, had curled up on the floor by the fire and closed her eyes. ‘Thanks, mister,’ she’d said. ‘Wake me up if tha wants owt,’ and James, who was having difficulty in staying awake, had succumbed to the effects of the strong Hull ale, and fallen asleep on the sofa.
He had stretched out his hands to the girl and drawn her towards him; her shawl was thin and her dress shabby and mended, but her face and hands were clean. ‘What’s your name?’ he’d asked gently, for she suddenly seemed afraid.
‘Sylvia, sir. But my friends call me Silvi.’ Her voice had been low, and she trembled.
‘Don’t be afraid, Silvi. I’m not going to hurt you. You can go home now if you want to.’ He’d felt some kind of shame when he saw the relief on her face. She obviously thought that she would have to pay for her supper. But he was always careful. True, he had visited brothels, but only those which were well-run establishments. He had never taken a street girl; there was too much at stake, he couldn’t risk his health or reputation, or his forthcoming marriage.
But there was a waif-like charm about her which had appealed to him, a naïve freshness in her eyes which surely, he had thought, couldn’t stem from innocence. He had kissed her then, just a small, tender kiss on her cheek, but it had raised a yearning response in him, and when she lifted her bowed head to look at him, he had kissed her again, this time on her mouth.
‘I didn’t even know her name,’ James said gloomily. ‘The mother of my child, and I don’t even know what she was called.’
‘Oh, don’t be so dramatic, James,’ Gilbert said irritably. ‘What does it matter now?’ But it had mattered then, when he had whispered her name again and again as he kissed her moist lips and ran his fingers through her long hair and down her slender throat.
‘What’s your name, sir?’ she’d asked softly as she’d lain beside him on the bed and he’d fumbled with the buttons of her bodice.
He had been hypnotized by her, struck by a melting, terrible need to possess her; and yet he hadn’t forced her. It was as if she willingly, yet timidly, acquiesced to a need stronger than either of them could ignore.
‘Rayner,’ he’d breathed in answer as his eyes feasted on her nakedness.
She’d touched his lips with her fingertips and gently traced around his eyes. Then she’d closed her eyes as he bore down on her and he saw the long lashes brushing her cheek. ‘Is that – what I should call you, sir?’ Her words fluttered, she drew in small gasping breaths and he thought that he had hurt her, though she assured him that he hadn’t.
He’d cradled her in his arms and given her gentle kisses on the top of her head; he’d felt loving and protective towards her and, as sleep overcame him, he knew most surely that he must see her again.
He was awakened early the next morning by the street sounds outside the window of the room, and found that she and her friend had slipped away. He’d thrown back the crumpled covers and stared at the dark red patch staining the white sheets and remembered now with shame; the relief, yet joy, that he had felt on discovering that she had been a virgin.
3
Isaac had left for the firm, Aunt Mildred and Anne were still in bed, and Gilbert was nowhere to be seen when James and Sammi, who had breakfasted together in almost complete silence, finally boarded the carriage which had come to collect Sammi.
‘Mother seems to have washed her hands of me,’ James said bitterly. ‘I knocked on her door but she wouldn’t see me.’
He looked down at the baby in her arms. ‘I feel nothing for it. Should I?’
‘No tenderness for something small and helpless?’ she asked, embarrassed that James had admitted that the child might after all be his.
‘Well, I feel sorry for it, but, well, it doesn’t feel like mine. Not like Sam that you gave me.’ He fondled the pup’s ears as it sat beneath his seat. ‘I’m so sorry that you have to tak
e the pup back, Sammi, but Mother couldn’t possibly let him stay, not now, if I’m going away.’
‘It’s so unkind,’ Sammi said hotly. ‘How could your mother send you away? Or the child?’
‘Oh, she’ll never accept the child, and I don’t think she knew what to do with me in any case, now that I’ve finished school. She says that I moon about.’ He stared moodily out of the window. ‘I suppose I do. I never quite know what to do with myself. I miss the other fellows, you know. We used to have such grand talks.’
The carriage rattled on through the hamlet towards the turnpike road, and Sammi looked out of the window at the surrounding countryside and the neat cottages and handsome mansions. It was a desirable place to live, she thought; near enough to the River Humber to feel the breezes from its waters, and good air coming down from the Wolds. A prettier place than her own Holderness countryside.
‘But not the place for you, James.’ She spoke her thoughts out loud. ‘It’s perhaps as well that you have to go away.’
‘What?’ James, locked in his own thoughts, looked perplexed.
‘Why don’t you get in touch with your master from school? You know, the one who said you should paint. Ask his advice.’
‘It’s odd that you should say that. Peacock. I was just thinking of him.’
The carriage slowed in front of the redbrick workhouse just outside the town, and came to a stop. James pulled down the window and put his head out.
‘Is this the place, sir?’ Johnson called down from his box.
‘Tell him no, James,’ Sammi said impulsively. ‘We’ll try the charity homes first and ask them, this looks so gloomy.’ She was thoughtful as they drove on into the town, and then suddenly said, ‘Let’s walk. We’ll ask Johnson to wait for us. If the guardians see us in a carriage they might not be inclined to take him.’ She looked down at the sleeping child. He was so still. He had cried during the night and she had given him water to pacify him, but she knew that, like the baby lambs on her father’s estate which she hand fed when their mothers had died, he needed more sustenance now.
