Father Unknown

by Fay Sampson

  They were leaving the city. The wooded valleys and climbing fields of the countryside were opening up before them. Hay-making was in full swing. Green fields were turning golden where the crop had been shorn and the bales lay ready for the tractor.

  They treated Prudence to lunch at one of their favourite country pubs and enjoyed her delight at the date of 1654 carved in the oak beam over the enormous fireplace.

  ‘I’m so jealous of you, living amongst all this,’ Prudence said.

  ‘The irony is that Nick designs houses for the future. Lovely ones. Eco-friendly and energy-efficient.’

  Nick grinned modestly. ‘I can still learn a lot from the people who built these. They understood their environment and their local materials better than most of us do nowadays. I’d be proud if anything I designed was still being lived in four centuries later.’

  After lunch they plunged deeper into the narrow lanes, then tackled a winding hill. Nick eased the car round the last bend. Cob-walled farmhouses turned their curved backs to the road, sheltering age-old farmyards. Chimneys rose high above thatch.

  ‘This is just so English,’ breathed Prudence. ‘How old would these be? A couple of hundred years?’

  ‘Maybe five, six hundred.’ Suzie was enjoying her friend’s amazement.

  ‘You’re kidding me?’ Prudence peered through the car windows as though she couldn’t get enough of the rural scenery. ‘Not just one building, like that pub where we ate. A whole village.’

  One last corner brought them to the village green. At the far end, the church’s crenellated tower reared up. Cobbled paths led to rows of cottages, with rainbow-flowered gardens. And there was the big house, hardly changed from the eighteenth-century engraving. Corley Barton.

  ‘This would have been quite new when Adam was born. Seventeen twenty-one, wasn’t it?’ Suzie asked. ‘Personally, I’d rather have had the medieval farmhouse. Look at that stone barn. That’s probably older than the house. Stop here, Nick.’

  Prudence was out of the car and taking photographs, almost before Nick had parked. Then she stood, looking up at the house, with its Georgian frontage. ‘So that’s where she worked?’

  Suzie joined her. ‘It was just a guess. We don’t know that. They’ll have employed a lot of local girls as servants. Johan might have been one of them.’

  Prudence looked around her at the quiet green, the cobbled paths. ‘However it happened, I can’t help seeing her, going about this village. People turning a cold shoulder to her, gossiping behind her back.’

  Nick spoke from behind them. ‘Didn’t you say something about your ancestor being a Dissenter?’

  ‘Presbyterian. Right from the time he landed in Pennsylvania. That’s what I’ve read.’

  ‘Then, if your Johan was one, maybe her boyfriend’s family didn’t approve. Wouldn’t let them marry.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’ Prudence turned to Suzie. ‘She got Adam baptized in the parish church. And you told me about unmarried mothers having to confess there.’

  ‘Until the Toleration Act of 1689, everyone had to go to the parish church on Sunday. You got fined if you didn’t. Even when the Dissenters were allowed to build their own chapels they had to leave the door open during services, to make sure they weren’t preaching treason. In Johan’s time, a lot of people still thought you had to be baptized in the church to get the right of settlement in that parish. Being legally settled in the parish entitled you to poor relief. You’d got your proof of entitlement in the baptismal register. She may have been taking out insurance. So she could have been a Dissenter and still used the parish church. Besides, I couldn’t find any evidence of a Presbyterian chapel in Corley. She’d have had to go to South Farwood, the nearest market town. Maybe she had friends who would support her there . . . Or perhaps not.’

  ‘You think the Presbyterians might have thrown her out when they heard about her baby?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Lord knows,’ Prudence sighed. ‘Folk can be mighty cruel.’

  Suzie was tempted to remind Prudence of her own shock at the discovery of illegitimacy in her family, but decided it was better to say nothing. Prudence had come a long way on her voyage of discovery. Johan Clayson had become real to her.

  As they turned away from the house, Suzie’s thoughts flew back to another girl, another shock of illegitimacy. A strait-laced stepfather.

  Tamara was only fourteen.

  ‘I wonder how old Johan was when she fell pregnant?’ she wondered aloud.

  They moved up the yew-lined path into the church. Suzie’s eyes were drawn to the finely carved screen at the head of the nave. But Prudence had halted in the porch.

  ‘So she might have knelt here.’ Her voice was tinged with incredulity. ‘Bare-legged, in just a sheet. With the whole congregation staring at her. And had to confess her sin and ask forgiveness, before they’d let her in. And do you know, a week ago, I might have approved of that. Now, it makes my stomach curl up to think of it.’

  They stood silent. But Suzie was thinking of that other girl. Tamara. Too frightened to tell even Millie exactly what had happened. The stern stepfather, who might indeed flog her, if only in private.

  She shook the black thought away and said more brightly, ‘Look. That’s the font where Adam was baptized.’

  Nick called from the aisle where he was examining the carved bench-ends. ‘It says in the booklet that the font’s probably Norman.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Prudence asked.

  ‘Eleventh or twelfth century.’

  Prudence’s mouth fell open. All she could manage was: ‘My!’ But soon she was busy with her camera. ‘Is it all right to take photographs inside the church?’

  ‘Go ahead. There’s nothing that says you can’t.’

  When she had finished, Suzie asked, ‘Well, have you seen enough here?’

  ‘It’s been wonderful. I just love to touch these things. Feel the connection.’

  It was Nick who suggested: ‘Do you still want to find that farm? The one where your Adam was apprenticed?’

  ‘Could we do that?’ Prudence’s face was filled with delight again.

  ‘Of course we can. Got the map, Suzie?’

  ‘Yes. It’s up on the high ground, on the edge of the parish.’ She swivelled round to survey the surrounding hills. ‘That one, I think, with the patch of moorland on top.’

  ‘Right. All aboard.’

  Suzie leaned forward from the back seat. ‘You have to imagine Adam walking this way into the village every Sunday. I imagine all the farm apprentices were expected to attend the service. The farmer’s family might have travelled in a cart or trap, or ridden horses. But my bet is that the apprentices had to walk.’

  It was a long winding road down over a narrow ford and then up the steep hillside. At first the view was barred by high earth banks with hedges growing on top.

  ‘Looks like they dug this road deep down. Why would they do that?’

  ‘I don’t suppose they did. It’s just the passage of feet and hooves over all those centuries, carving it down into the earth.’

  Prudence shook her head. ‘It’s hard to imagine all those hundreds of years, all those travellers. And you folks live with this history all around you.’

  ‘Yes. It didn’t really come home to me until I started tracing my family history. It makes me look at everything from a different angle. Through other people’s eyes. I’ve found out so much about English history I didn’t know before. Not just the kings and battles, but the way ordinary people lived.’

  ‘I guess I ought to be getting out and walking this. Just to live my Adam’s experience.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Nick. ‘We’ll let you out at the top.’

  They crossed a cattle grid, and suddenly the day was bright around them. Hedged fields gave way to open moorland of bracken and heather on the top of the hill.

  Suzie consulted the map. ‘Norworthy’s not far from here. I make it the second farm after this cattle grid.’

 
; Nick drove on, skirting sheep that sauntered across the road.

  ‘This is Lower Norworthy.’ Suzie read the board at a farm gate. ‘Next one.’

  The road climbed gently now. The moors and valleys of half the county lay spread around them. Another farm came into view.

  Nick stopped the car. ‘This seems to be it.’

  The three of them got out. Suzie felt the moorland breeze fresh on her face. The song of a skylark cascaded down to them.

  ‘Will you look at that,’ Prudence marvelled. ‘How did they ever shift such stones?’

  The barn nearest to the road was made of massive granite blocks. No two were the same size, yet they bonded together to make an outbuilding strong enough to resist any onslaughts of weather or time.

  ‘Who knows?’ said Suzie. ‘That hayloft may be where the apprentices slept.’

  The yard was quiet.

  ‘Do you think we dare knock on the door and ask if we can see inside that farmhouse?’

  ‘You could try,’ said Nick. ‘But from the look of it, it’s been rebuilt since Adam was here in the eighteenth century. Not much of its history left, I’m afraid.’

  Prudence still looked wistful.

  ‘No harm in trying,’ Suzie said.

  They walked up to the closed front door. Nick was right. The house was modern. It did not have that thrill of history that the stone barn did.

  Suzie rang the bell. There was no answer.

  ‘Gone into town for their Saturday shopping,’ Nick said. ‘Probably get their food from Sainsbury’s nowadays.’

  Prudence swivelled slowly, taking in the surroundings. She got out her camera again. ‘The house may be new, but I guess that view hasn’t changed in centuries.’ She snapped the four quarters of the horizon, then the stonework of the barn.

  ‘You’re right about the weight,’ Nick commented. ‘It gives me a hernia just looking at some of those stones.’

  Prudence shook herself slowly, as if trying to convince herself of the reality of what she saw. She reached out a hand and stroked the masonry. ‘I’m here. Where he lived. From the time he was eight years old.’

  Suzie wandered back to the gate, giving the other woman space to form her memories.

  Nick looked at his watch. ‘Did you want to go to this other place?’

  ‘Hole? It’s the other side of the parish. Time’s getting on. And I haven’t found a definite link to it with this younger Adam. Maybe we should leave it for today. Pru’s in England for another week. If we find her family did live at Hole, I can bring her back when she returns from William Clayson’s.’

  Nick drove them home.

  Millie met them, pale and distraught. ‘I’ve been over to her house. She’s not there. Her mother’s trying to cover up, but I don’t think she knows where Tamara is either.’

  EIGHT

  Nick put his arm around Millie’s shoulders. ‘Hey, love. Calm down. There’s bound to be a simple explanation.’

  ‘I know this is the twenty-first century,’ Suzie said. ‘But they may be hoping to keep her pregnancy a secret. With her stepfather being a headmaster of the old type, he’ll be thinking of his own reputation, as well as hers. I expect they’ve sent Tamara off for a few days to have it dealt with.’

  ‘You mean an abortion? But she wouldn’t. She absolutely wouldn’t. We talked about it. She thinks it’s a real person, from the moment it was conceived. She said she felt responsible for it. Another life.’

  ‘She’s only fourteen. Her parents may have talked her into it.’

  ‘Her mother wouldn’t.’

  ‘But her stepfather might. By all accounts, he’s a pretty forceful man. She may not have been able to say no to him.’

  ‘Pig! He couldn’t make her, could he? He was there all the time I was talking to her mother, sort of glaring at me. At her too.’

  ‘Legally, no, he couldn’t,’ Nick said. ‘But emotional pressure can be hard to stand up to, particularly from a man used to exercising authority on teenage girls.’

  An idea was growing in Suzie’s mind. ‘Unless . . .’ She hesitated. She didn’t want to worry Millie further. ‘If Tamara couldn’t say no to him, might she have run away?’

  All this time, Prudence had been hanging back tactfully, pretending to admire the roses along the garden path. Now she spoke for the first time. ‘I’m with Tamara about the baby. In my book, it’s a living human being. Question is, if Tamara’s run off to save it, where would she run to?’

  The adults were looking at Millie for help.

  She thought for a while, then shook her head. ‘I can’t think of anywhere. No one she talked about. Unless . . . What about her father? Her real father? You remember? Reynard Woodman.’

  ‘Kevin Gamble, before he got famous.’ Suzie’s eyes questioned the others. ‘Would she?’

  Nick shrugged. ‘Depends how close they still are.’

  ‘She used to go and see him once a fortnight,’ Millie said. ‘Stay the weekend. Lucky cow. Reynard’s a bundle of fun. Or he used to be when he lived here.’

  ‘Don’t they get on now?’

  ‘She doesn’t talk about him so much nowadays. If I ask her how her weekend was, she just sort of mutters “OK”. There was one good day. Her aunt came over and took her shopping in Selfridges in Birmingham. But otherwise . . . I told her, if she doesn’t want to go any more, she could let me go instead. I think he’s fabulous.’

  ‘Why don’t you try ringing his number? In case she has gone there.’

  Millie’s eyes widened. ‘Could I? Speak to Reynard Woodman?’ Her tone was almost reverential. ‘Thanks, Mum! That’s a brilliant idea.’ She made for the door. ‘But I still can’t understand why she’s not answering her mobile. It’s been switched off since I saw her on Wednesday. She hasn’t even sent me a single text.’

  ‘That’s little short of a miracle,’ said Nick. ‘Girls your age seem to spend half their lives on the phone. Sounds as if she’s going out of her way not to let anyone find out where she is.’

  ‘Why would she do that to me?’

  ‘I don’t know, love,’ Suzie comforted her. ‘She’s obviously upset. She probably wants some time to think about it. Sort herself out. She’ll get back to you, I’m sure.’

  ‘That man!’ Millie burst out. ‘Mr bloody Dawson. All the time I was talking to Tamara’s mum he was there. Sort of looming in the background. He didn’t say anything. But he was listening, all right. And Mrs Dawson kept looking round at him. Like she was frightened of saying the wrong thing.’

  ‘Hey, easy,’ Nick put in. ‘If Tamara’s really disappeared, they’ll be as upset as you are. I don’t think I’d be behaving normally if you’d done a runner.’

  ‘If she has run away,’ Prudence said, ‘they’d tell your police, wouldn’t they? Don’t you worry, Millie. They’ll find her.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to ring Reynard Woodman,’ Millie said. ‘What’s the number for directory enquiries?’

  They were drinking tea on the patio when she came back. Millie’s face was sullen, her anger only just under control.

  ‘He’s ex-directory.’ She threw herself into an empty chair. ‘Why? It’s like walking up to a building and all the doors slam shut and the lights go out. Why can’t I reach her?’

  ‘I’m sure her mother will have his number.’

  ‘I don’t fancy going back to ask. She practically threw me off the doorstep last time. I mean, I’ve been going round to Tamara’s house for years, and it was like she didn’t want to know me.’

  ‘Look, he’s bound to have a website. That’ll tell us how to contact him. I’ll check it out.’

  She went to her computer and came back a few minutes later. ‘No joy, I’m afraid. It says all enquiries should be addressed to his agent. I’m not sure this is the sort of query I’d want to do through a third party.’

  ‘What’s her father like?’ Prudence asked.

  ‘Do you mean her real father?’ Suzie asked. ‘Kevin?’

  ‘Mum!
’ Millie protested. ‘Nobody else calls him Kevin Gamble any more. He’s Reynard Woodman now. Author of The Secret of Humbledown Forest, and all that series.’

  Prudence looked apologetically blank. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘He writes children’s books. I used to love them when I was younger. I’ve still got most of them up in my bedroom.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Suzie remembered. ‘You were so excited the day you found out. You came running home from primary school to tell me you’d sat next to this new girl and she was his daughter. But that was years ago. He’d only just written his first best-seller. We still knew him as Kevin Gamble round here. How long is it since he and Tamara’s mother broke up?’

  ‘Four years. It was our last year at Blackhills, before we went to Bishop’s High. I stopped reading his books for a bit, because I was mad at him for leaving them.’

  ‘It’s a shame. I remember him as a fun person. He used to take you with them for picnics and boating on the river.’

  ‘Well, he doesn’t seem much fun now. He doesn’t want anybody to know his phone number.’

  ‘He’s famous. I expect he’d get inundated with calls if he was in the directory. Maybe we can find out how to reach him through his agent. It’ll have to be after the weekend.’

  ‘If he’s ex-directory, I don’t suppose they’re giving his phone number away.’ She flounced from her chair, every line of her slender body evincing frustration.

  Prudence followed her with her eyes. Then she bent to retrieve her handbag. ‘You guys have been so wonderful to me. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed today. Just to stand in the actual village where Adam and Johan lived. To touch the font where he was baptized. It’s a dark story in places, but at least it’s real to me now.’

  ‘Won’t you stay for supper?’

  ‘No, thank you kindly. I’ve imposed myself enough on you. And Millie’s not going to want to make polite conversation with someone she still hardly knows, the way she’s feeling. Besides, I have to be off early in the morning. I’ll be back in two or three days. And I sure hope Millie will have found her friend before that.’

  Suzie and Nick were startled awake as the bedroom door flew open. Nick snapped on the light.