‘This is what, Freddie? This is a child. Whose child is it?’
‘It’s his, an’ the one he was gona dump that night a long time ago when I couldn’t tell you.’
He saw that her face was all screwed up, and she said, ‘Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Well, we’ll hear all about it when we get to yon side. But, oh my goodness! You’ve had us all worried. Your people are distracted. You know that? Quite distracted. You’ve got to stop this.’
‘Oh, miss, ’tis stopped, all stopped. But…but I’d better get across home ’cos I feel he’s after us.’
‘Who? Gallagher?’
‘Aye. Aye; he went mad when he found it was alive.’
She was hurrying him forward along the dockside now. ‘What do you mean, when he found it was alive? Did he think it was dead?’
‘Aye; I’ve told you. Oh…oh dear me, miss, I’m tired. I fell an’ I’ve been tired since. I don’t know how I’ve kept awake all this time. I think it was the cart rumblin’ that kept me…’
‘Shh! What’s that?’ She had pulled him close to her. ‘That’s a horse coming, galloping. Who’d come galloping along the quay at this time of night? My God! It could be an’ all, it could be him. Come on! We can run for it. I’ve got a sculler further along. Come on! Come on!’
They were on the longshore now and it seemed deserted, but there was no doubt who the man dismounting from a horse on the bank behind them was.
‘Give me the child!’ she cried as she ran; then immediately contradicted herself, saying, ‘No, no! You go on.’
It was then the voice hailed them, shouting, ‘Hold there! Hold!’
She swung the lantern up and it showed the tall figure coming down the bank, his high boots sending up sprays of sand while one raised hand brandished a horsewhip.
He was within an arm’s length of them now when he stopped and, bending forward, peered at the figure who, likewise, had a raised arm. And as if in surprise he muttered, ‘Maggie Hewitt?’
‘Yes, Maggie Hewitt.’
‘What have you got to do with this? I want that boy and the child.’
‘Well, you’re not getting the boy, or the child.’
‘Don’t try to stop me, woman! That’s my child.’
‘For how long? Till you throttle it?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You know what I mean. Your child was buried with your wife. Everyone knows that. Now get back or else you’ll wish you had.’
‘Woman, don’t try to thwart me or you’ll find yourself in the river! I warn you.’
She now made a backward movement with one foot, saying quickly, ‘Go on! Go on, Freddie. Go on over; the sculler’s just along there.’
But the boy didn’t move. Whether it was he was petrified of the man or he didn’t want to leave her, he wouldn’t know; but he stood there, the child clinging to him and a portion of his mind aware that it was once again wetting and that urine was running up his sleeve.
When he saw the whip miss Maggie’s head he did move, and that was forward, only to be stopped almost in his stride by a cry from the man as Maggie’s cudgel caught him in the middle. The next moment his mouth sprang agape when, as the man’s body seemed to tumble forward, Maggie delivered another blow which caught him on the back of the head. And there he was now doubled in two lying at the water’s edge.
He watched her, in amazement now, raise the lantern and peer back towards the dock, then up the river. There were still voices coming from the loading boat and there were voices and figures moving along the far shore.
The next moment she had turned and thrust the lantern, then the cudgel, into his free hand and, without saying a further word, she now bent forward and began to roll the recumbent body further into the water. Then she was in the water herself urging the bulk forward; and only when the water reached almost up to her thighs and had blown her skirt into a bell did she stop.
In the flickering light from the lantern he saw the huddled shape sink beneath the water, and he stood in petrified stiffness looking to where her dark shape was bending down as if she was gazing at the incoming tide. Of a sudden he felt funny again: he wanted to go to sleep just where he stood with the water now creeping over his ankles.
He wasn’t aware that she had turned towards him until he felt a hand on him, and then he experienced bodily relief when she took the child from him, gasping as she did so, ‘On!…Go on!’ He went on splashing through the water, the swinging lantern casting weird shadows before him.
When they reached the boat he saw that she had put the child inside her coat, and now she ordered tersely, ‘Row!’
‘I can’t use two oars.’
‘Nobody’s asking you to. Give one here!’
A wind had risen and with the uneven rowing the boat rocked, and when she cried at him, ‘Steady!’ he said nothing; he was tired, frightened, even petrified: she had killed him; perhaps not at first, but she had made sure by drowning him.
‘Put out the light.’
‘What?’
‘I said, put out the light. Quick!’
Gathering breath, he blew into the top of the lantern that rested between his feet. And when presently she said, ‘We’ll run in here, but be quiet,’ he thought he knew the shore even in the dark, but apparently he didn’t know it as well as she did.
She didn’t take the first path up the bank leading to the Low Lights but kept on. He knew she was holding the child in the crook of one arm while still gripping the cudgel because she was guiding him very firmly with it pressed against his shoulder.
Lights showing ahead pointed out that they were nearing the quay where the work was still going on; but before they reached it he was twisted around to climb some slimy steps jutting out from a wall. There was no rail and as he neared the top he fell onto his hands and knees, and her voice hissed at him, ‘You’re all right. Stand up!’
They were now in a labyrinth of short streets where the lights from windows told him that they were nearing the top of the hill. She was walking slower now and she had taken her hand from him; but she still did not speak; neither did he, for all he wanted to do was to drop down and sleep.
At times he knew he was walking with his eyes closed, but when some time later—he had no account of how long, whether it was five, ten or fifteen minutes—she pushed him through the gate and up the path, he couldn’t believe that he was home. And in relief he did think of it as home at this moment.
‘You’re all right. You’re all right.’ Her voice was floating about him.
‘I’m…I’m very tired.’
‘Yes, yes, I know you are, lad. Have…have you been hurt?’
He was aware that she was stripping his clothes off him and he said, ‘When he threw me off the horse I hit a stone, or a rock.’ And at this she said, ‘Aha!’
He opened his eyes and was amazed to see she hadn’t a skirt on, or boots, or stockings, she was standing in her petticoat and bodice. What was the matter with him? Oh, he was just tired. But the bairn?
He said now, ‘Where’s the bairn?’
‘Don’t worry, don’t worry, she’s all right, she’s all right. Go to sleep.’
‘You killed him.’
‘Yes, I killed him. You wouldn’t like to have seen me go to the House of Correction would you for bodily assault, while you were doing time there, too, for kidnapping? And he would have had us both. Oh, yes: Roderick Gallagher would indeed have had us both, because how could we prove that he intended to murder his child? His servants? Servants can be bought off. Oh yes; money talks loudly. And he was powerful in his own way, was Gallagher. Very powerful. We’ll talk more in the morning. Go to sleep.’
And he went to sleep.
When he next awoke it was to look up into his mother’s face. She was bending over him and stroking the hair from his brow, and he said, ‘Ma. Am I home?’
‘Aye, lad.’ She nodded. ‘You’re home.’
He looked beyond her to a bedrail and beyond that to a mirror attached to a pie
ce of furniture. They hadn’t anything like that in the bedroom. He was at Miss Maggie’s. When he went to pull himself up his mother’s hand stayed him as she said, ‘Lie still now. Lie still.’
‘Ma.’
‘Aye, lad?’
‘There’s a bairn.’
‘It’s all right. It’s all right. You can talk in a little while.’
His eyes were wide open now. He stared at his mother, then asked, ‘How did you get here?’
‘On me feet.’
‘Oh, Ma, don’t be funny, ’tis serious.’
‘I know ’tis serious, lad. By the way, did someone hit you?’
‘No, no, Ma. When he threw me off the horse I fell against a stone and after that I kept fallin’ asleep. Where’s…where’s the bairn, Ma?’ He again attempted to rise, and again she pushed him back, saying quietly, ‘She’s all right. She’s been fed and she’s asleep. And clean for once in her life, poor bairn, at least as clean as we can get her at the moment until her scabs heal; she must have sat in wet for God knows how long. They should be gibbeted, that lot.’
‘They…they saved her, Ma, and…and had to hide her. Where’s miss?’
‘I’m here.’
The last time he had seen her she seemed to be almost naked. Now she was in a grey dress with rows of buttons down the front. Her hair was combed back, making her face look more weather-beaten still.
She came round to the other side of the bed and sat down, and said quietly, ‘You hungry?’
‘No; but…but I’d like a drink.’
‘I’ll get it.’ His mother got up and left the room, and, his eyes widening, he looked towards the door through which she had just gone, saying, ‘She knows where to go?’
‘Oh, yes, yes; she’s grown up enough to find her way to the kitchen.’
‘Who…who brought her?’
‘I did.’
‘Oh.’
She moved up the bed closer to him now and, putting her hand against his cheek, she turned his head right round towards her as she said softly, ‘Now listen. Can you remember what happened on the shore last night?’
He looked away from her up to the white ceiling, then down to the flowered wallpaper, and then into her face again before saying, ‘Aye, everything.’
‘Well now, listen very carefully. Not to your mother, nor to another soul must you describe what happened. We know nothing about a man who tried to take the child from us. You understand? You can tell your mother…and me everything that happened until I met you on the dockside. From then, we just got into the boat, crossed the river and came here. Now this is important, Freddie. Do you hear? Because he’ll be found later, and…and there’ll be bruises on him, and’—her voice dropped to a mere whisper as she went on—‘you wouldn’t like to see me swing by the neck, would you?’
‘Oh, Miss.’
‘Now’—she was wagging her finger at him—‘your mother too must be given to understand not to mention a word of what you tell her because people would put two and two together if the whole story came out. I think those across the water that kept the child alive, they’ll keep their mouths shut too, at this stage. Anyway, I’m going to get in touch with one of them. But listen, and carefully, the child is the daughter of my cousin who died. You understand?’
After a moment he brought his chin into his chest by way of confirmation, then said, ‘She is the daughter of your cousin who died.’ Then in a normal tone, he said, ‘How you goin’ to bring that about? Everybody knows…’
‘Everybody knows what? That I haven’t got a cousin? I have got a cousin, two cousins: one’s in London and one’s in Darlington. But it’s all worked out. I’m going to take a few trips, and one day very soon, and it will have to be very soon, within the next week or so, I’ll come back with the bairn in me arms. It’ll have to be at night, because china dolls don’t cry. Do you follow me?’
He didn’t, not quite, not about the china dolls because his head was muzzy, but what he said was, ‘You mean to let her live with you? We won’t have to take her?’
‘Don’t you think your mother’s got enough to look after? And why shouldn’t I take her? It’s about time I took on some responsibility. I’ve had it too easy, don’t you think?’
He knew she expected him to give no answer, but, a faint smile on his lips, he said, ‘Aye; aye, I think you have.’ She slapped his face gently with her fingertips, saying, ‘Concussion hasn’t dulled your wits.’
‘What d’you mean, concush…?’
‘That’s what you’ve got, that’s what’s making you sleepy. You’ll be like this for a couple of days yet. And you’re very tired too, in any case.’
‘But…but who’s goin’ to look after the bairn? If I’m goin’ to do the garden an’ things, I couldn’t.’
‘Of course you couldn’t. Who’d expect you to look after a bairn?’
‘I used to look after our Lily.’
‘Well, your mother’s going to look after…my bairn.’
‘She is? Me ma? She’s workin’ on the ropes half-day; an’ then there’s me da.’
‘Shut up and go to sleep again, at least after you’ve had something to drink. Your mother’s taken on a new job: she’s working for me now, here. And close your mouth, you’re nothing to look at at any time but with it open you look like a gargoyle.’
‘A what?’
‘A gargoyle. Which reminds me, you’re going to school.’
‘No, by God! I’m…’
‘And we’ll have no more “by Gods!” either. You’re going to school, at least part of the day.’
‘I’m not though.’
‘You are though.’
She rose from the bed as his mother came into the room and, speaking to her across the distance, she said, ‘He’s so pleased he’s going to school and stop being an ignorant little lout.’
‘You were goin’ to larn me.’
‘I haven’t the time now. And anyway, it’s not larn. And that’s just by the way; there’ll be lots of by the ways for you, young man…Sit yourself down, Jinny, for I must be off for a while else those cut-throats down on the quay will have collared half my business.’
He took the mug of cocoa from his mother and gulped at it; then he looked at the two women, sitting one at each side of the bed, at the big bony bulky form of his ma and the thin narrowness of the woman whom at this moment he knew he liked as much as he did his ma, but who last night had murdered a man, and it hadn’t seemed to have affected her, for she was still acting the same.
He didn’t know, but his mother knew, that Miss Maggie Hewitt had spewed her heart up in the closet after she had come for her early this morning.
Two
A fortnight had passed and tongues were wagging along the quay. Did you ever know such a thing? Maggie Hewitt had adopted a bairn. A cousin of hers had died and left it to her. She didn’t seem over-pleased about it; you couldn’t get a civil word out of her at times. And it must be telling on her for she looked peaky. Well, it was to be understood, wasn’t it? because she’d had to spend out, and who had she spent out on? The Musgrave family. Taking on big Jinny as a part-time housekeeper, and the little ’un’s brother as a gardener, and he himself, it was said, was going to school. Oh, they’d believe that when it happened because that would be like tying an eel up with silk ribbon. And then what would the gang do for a runner? It was also said there was one place he wouldn’t run to any more, and that was across the water. Funny business that, for a man like Gallagher to be found in the river and been bashed about an’ all, neck broken with a heavy instrument. So the coroner had said. He was missing for five days. The first inkling of his being missing was when his man came looking for him. He had been gone twenty-four hours. ’Twas then they knew who owned the horse that had been picked up at yon end of the sands. His man had said his master had ridden out to meet some friends. But the question now was: who were the friends? And the customs had been interested too. But there was nothing found on the body. It was understood h
e had a son by his first wife who would come into the estate; but the boy was only ten years old and had been living in the care of his maternal grandmother.
Freddie himself had had a visit from two customs officials. One was from the excise office in Saville Street, a Mr Thomas Brayhay. It was the place where you went for permits. This man had asked him what he was doing on the river in the dark on a certain night and he had answered glibly he was going across to see his granny who had took bad; his ma couldn’t go ’cos she had to see to his da and the bairns.
Was it not that he went to meet a certain gentleman with a message?
No, no. Anyway, he didn’t run messages any more for anybody, the fish men or the butcher, ’cos he was going to have a half-time job in Miss Hewitt’s office and go to school.
But the man had then wanted to know why he went across the river in a little sculler when the tide was going down; and, too, had he not heard someone calling on him to stop?
No, it was a windy night, if he remembered rightly, he had said.
Miss Maggie had come on the scene and she had laid about the customs men with her tongue and said in future she would be responsible for anything that the boy did and that they had to come to her. And the conversation had ended funnily because the man had smiled at Miss Hewitt, and had said, ‘Oh, Maggie, Maggie.’ And she had turned a funny colour and wagged her head, then showed him out.
Then another man had come across from South Shields and when he had asked the same questions he had answered in the same way, except he added, his granny hadn’t been well and he had stayed with her ’cos she had nobody to look after her since her granddaughter had gone back to Darlington. Fortunately his granny had been primed with half a dollar and had kept to the same story. But it had given her something of a hold over his ma which he didn’t like. But the excise man from the permit office had been the worst. He was still the worst, for he had collared him only yesterday and said, didn’t he think it was funny that his mother should be walking the waterfront enquiring of the boatmen if any of them had seen him the day following the night he went across the river if she had sent him to his granny’s. And the only way out of it was to cheek the man, and he said, Oh, his ma had funny turns, sort of fits and starts, which had brought the man’s hand out at him; but he had dodged it.
The Harrogate Secret (aka The Secret) Page 13
