The Harrogate Secret (aka The Secret)

by Catherine Cookson

  When later, he had told the Miss about it she had said, ‘Don’t try to be a clever clouts with that lot. If they question you just say you know nowt or keep dumb, act stupid. They can’t have much on you then. But there’s one thing, they’re not going to let this drop. They know there was something big afoot that night and they’re going to find out what it was.’ It was then she had looked at him and said again, ‘Have you any idea at all what he did with the bag?’

  And he had repeated for the countless time, ‘No; I’ve told you. The last I saw of it was when the woman came in the room and gave the alarm. And the main thing that stuck in me mind after that was that awful room an’ the bairn.’

  Three odd things then happened before this chapter of Freddie’s life closed. The Miss came to him and said, ‘They’ve gone.’ And for a moment he didn’t know to whom she was referring and he said, ‘Who’s gone?’

  ‘The staff. The lot from The Towers. I…I made enquiries. It appears they all got the push. There’s an old lady in charge now, with a young boy, Gallagher’s son, and she brought her own staff with her. And she must be a woman of some substance because there’s eleven of them and two carriages. And she’s having the whole place torn apart and redone. I don’t suppose you’d have an idea where those three went, would you?’

  He had just shaken his head and felt sorry for them, for they’d be out of work. From what he could gather, too, they had been with the family from before the time that man was born…

  But what had happened to that lot was made clear when one morning, as he was about to go down the garden the gate opened and the muffled figure of a woman entered. As he went towards her he gave a slight gasp when he recognised the pockmarked face. It seemed to be even more disfigured, although it was shaded with a deep-brimmed bonnet and the collar of her cloak covered her chin.

  ‘Hello there, lad,’ she said.

  ‘Eeh, it’s you! I thought you had gone.’

  ‘On the point of. On the point of.’

  ‘You all got the push?’

  ‘Aye; we all got the push.’

  ‘’Twasn’t fair.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, we’re all right. How’s the bairn?’

  He looked back towards the house and said, ‘She’s lovely now.’

  The woman’s lids shaded her eyes and her head drooped before she acknowledged quietly, ‘She was in a state, I know, but we couldn’t do anything about it. I used to rub her with lard, but it was the mess an’ the wet. And there were days when he was in the house and we daren’t go up because he was restless, you know, goin’ from one place to the other. And if he’d seen us up on that floor where none of us ever really went ’cos there was no need, just to sweep the cobwebs away now and again, he would have twigged and he would have murdered us. Instead he was…well, somebody must have done for him, mustn’t they?’

  He made no answer to this, and she said, ‘We all wondered how you got across. We didn’t know what had happened, only that you must have reached home and taken the bairn with you. We thought your mother had it, that was, up till yesterday. When me da came across the water he went in a bar and heard bits and pieces, and he put two and two together. Why…why did the woman take her? I mean the owner of this place?’

  ‘Oh’—he hesitated—‘’cos I suppose she’s lonely. An’…and I work for her, an’ you see it was her who helped me across the water that night. She happened to be just comin’ back from some place over there. And I had to tell her…well a bit, not everythin’,’ he lied, ‘about the bairn that nobody wanted. An’ it just went on from there.’

  ‘I…I couldn’t see her, could I, the bairn?’

  ‘Eeh, no! I don’t think it would be wise. Me ma’s in there; she might go for you, ’cos it was in a state, its backside an’ that.’

  Her head was bobbing now as she said, ‘I just thought. Anyway, we’re off. We’re goin’ off to Scotland the morrow.’

  ‘You lookin’ for work?’

  She gave a deep laugh now, saying, ‘No, laddie, we’re not lookin’ for work. I can say this to you ’cos you’ve got a big head on those little shoulders, we won’t need to look for work. You see we’d worked for the family…well, me da had from he was a lad, and me ma, she started when she was five, and I was born there, and we stuck by him through thick and thin. There was a time when things were thin afore he married…well, the bairn’s mother. And she had a bit. Oh aye, I’d say she had more than a tidy bit and he got the lot. That’s all he married her for, the money. Yet she was bonny, beautiful, and the nicest lass you’d care to meet. But I think any good that was in him was buried with his first wife. Yet he couldn’t bear to look at her child after she went. Now isn’t that funny? But good days or bad he never gave us a penny piece over our wages, an’ they weren’t big I can tell you; three shillings a week I was gettin’, me ma five, and me da eight, never a penny more. And so when he didn’t turn up…well, I ask you! What would you have done? He had a few hidey-holes he thought nobody knew anything about. He thought he was the cutest thing on two legs. Of course, mind, when the old girl took over she found quite a bit in the safe, as well as his first wife’s jewellery, and his second wife’s an’ all, at least most of it.’ Her eyes widened under her bonnet as she bent towards him now, whispering, ‘What I really came across for was to see your ma, ’cos I thought the bairn was with her, you see, an’ to make it all right that she wouldn’t be out of pocket for some time. But I can see the bairn’s in clover, and if your ma’s lookin’ after her she’ll be all right an’ all. But anyway—’ She now put her hand into a pocket and pulled out a purse. It was chamois leather and was very like the one he had seen her master use. She drew out a half-sovereign and handed it towards him, saying, ‘That’s for yourself ’cos you’re a good lad.’

  He gave her no thanks but looked at the money in the palm of his hand, and he had the strange desire to hand it back to her and say, ‘I don’t want that, that’s his.’ But she was saying now, ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever meet again ’cos Scotland’s a long way off, at least where we’re goin’. So ta-ra! lad. It’s been a strange do, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. Aye, it has.’

  She backed from him towards the gate, and now he felt forced to say, ‘Good luck to you.’

  ‘Thank you, lad. We’ve already got it. God looks after his own. An’ good luck to you. He’ll see to you an’ all. As I said to me ma, you’ll do things, go places, be somebody. It’s in your face. Ta-ra!’

  ‘Ta-ra!’

  He’d do things, go places, be somebody.

  Would he?

  The second thing took place the next morning. It was the day on which he was about to attend half-day school. His mother had given him a clean pair of trousers, saying, ‘Put them on. And there’s a clean shirt as well. And put some blackin’ on your boots, mind. Anyway, I’ll be over there later to see that you do.’

  When he reached the house Miss Maggie said to him, ‘You can stop helping John from now on. Anyway, he’s better on his own. He’s been at it for the past hour; I think he’d work all night if he had a light. You’re coming down to the office with me. You’re starting school today and a morning at my place will show what it will lead to if you can take it into that thick skull of yours.’ She had smiled at him; then, looking at the parcel he had unwrapped, she said, ‘Oh! Clean trousers and shirt. Go and put them on now, so you’ll be ready.’

  The trousers he had on were the same as those he had worn on the night he had crossed the river carrying the little parcel in the inside pocket. He couldn’t remember when he had first started to wear them or when he hadn’t worn them, they seemed stiff with glar, but he considered they were still all right for gardening work. As he took them off he looked at them and thought, I’ve got a feelin’ in me bones that I’ll never don you again. And then, as if putting his hand into the inner pocket for the last time, he groped with it, only to bring it out sharply as if he had been stung under the finger nail. It seemed, he thought, as if
there was a pin in there or something. There was a seam in the bottom of the pocket and it felt thick with fluff on both sides. So again he put his hand into the pocket and now gently scraped his fingernail along one side of the seam; and there he felt the sharp thing again. Now he used two fingers to scrape along the seam until he felt the prick, then pulled out fluff mixed up with black dust which he put on the table. Gently now he blew at the dust until what looked like a piece of glass was left.

  He thrust his hand quickly back into the pocket and again his fingers travelled along the seam, and again they found something sharp. Once more he was blowing at the dust and revealing something red, red glass this time. For the third time and at a pace now, both fingers were raking along the seam, and for the third time he brought out a piece of glass. Now he turned his trousers inside out and tried to turn the pocket inside out, but this was impossible. So once more he scraped wildly with his fingernails. But there were no more pieces of glass to add to the one red and two white pieces of glass that seemed to be dancing on the table in the sunlight. But they weren’t pieces of glass, he knew that; they were what must have fallen out of that package when his side hit the stone. Eeh! Eeh, dear God! What if they were…? But they were. Where was the Miss? He looked round the room wildly as if to conjure her up.

  ‘Miss! Miss!’ He was out in the hall now and running towards the kitchen.

  ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Come. Come an’ look at this.’ For a moment he didn’t realise that he was almost naked and that his middle was covered only by his shirt tails.

  She followed him into the small back bedroom, and there he pointed to the table with the three pieces of glass on it.

  She stood looking down at them but didn’t touch them; and then, turning her head slowly, she said in a very stern voice, ‘Where did you get these?’

  He now pointed to his trousers lying on the floor and, picking them up, he tried to explain to her that they had got into the fluff but his words were coming out in a stuttering gasp.

  ‘Sit down. Sit down.’ She pushed him onto the side of the bed. And now she picked up the stones and examined them, saying, ‘You know what these are, don’t you?’

  ‘Aye. What I had in the parcel for him.’

  ‘Huh! Huh!’ She began to laugh. First, it was only her shoulders that shook, then her whole body and her head seemed to bob with laughter, and then it burst from her mouth and she laughed until the tears ran down her face. Of a sudden she threw her arms around him and hugged him. And when her laughter subsided it was she who now stuttered, ‘Y…Y…Your interest will certainly go up with these, boy. Oh certainly.’

  ‘I can keep them?’

  ‘What else? What else? But keep them is the word, and for a long time, years in fact. They won’t depreciate in value. Am I to be your banker again?’

  His mouth now went into a wide grin; then he said, ‘We’ll have to discuss it, won’t we?’

  Her hand did not go out and clip his ear, but her voice was soft as she said, ‘Oh, Freddie; this could be the rock on which you build your life.’

  He looked from her to the stones. That young woman Connie had said he’d do things, go places, be somebody. And now the Miss had said these could be the rock on which he could build his life. Funny the things people said.

  The third thing worried him for a bit.

  Mick Harper said to him: ‘Why did you leave your sculler across the river an’ come over with Maggie Hewitt in hers? You didn’t think you were spotted, but you were.’

  He didn’t relay this conversation to the Miss, for he felt she would worry on the side; already she had been sick a number of times over the past weeks. Cheery all day when folks were about, but he’d heard her vomit at night, from what was his bedroom now, at least it was for two or three nights a week when his mother had told him to stay to help the Miss with the bairn when it was fractious and couldn’t sleep and cried. At such times he would walk the floor with it and hum to it. It seemed to soothe it. It was then he had heard her vomiting.

  His answer to Mick Harper had been, he had met up with the Miss and she had asked him to take an oar for the tide was running fast and she didn’t think she was up to getting across herself. So now he knew. And did that satisfy him?

  And Mick Harper had said, no, it didn’t, and that he thought he was a clever clogs, but he’d be caught out one day and he’d be there to see it.

  Freddie wasn’t to know, of course, that Mick’s prophecy, too, would come true.

  PART THREE

  AS IT HAPPENED WHEN I WAS A MAN

  One

  ‘Ben Hutton is going to swallow his spittle and choke himself when he gets this account. I can hear him yelling now: “Ninepence in the pound tax! I won’t pay it. I won’t pay it.”’ Freddie was leaning across the desk addressing Maggie who was sitting deep in a leather chair, her feet on the fender, soles upturned towards the roaring fire, and a glass of steaming liquid in one hand, and he went on, ‘Remember in fifty-five when Gladstone put it up to one and tuppence? Eeh! He danced, didn’t he? Actually left the floor in the office. Remember Andy Stevens was just the office boy then, and he burst out laughing and Ben Hutton brought him one across the lug and knocked him off his high seat.’

  ‘Yes, and you, big fella, said, we’ll have none of that. And you nearly lost us Hutton’s contract.’

  ‘You know something, Maggie’—Freddie now sat back in his chair—‘I’ve often wondered about his giving us the contract. His business now is big enough to take on two or three clerks.’

  ‘Well, if he did that he’d have to pay two or three clerks, wouldn’t he? And you know, when they first started they did all their own summing up between them, him and his fat bejewelled Bessie. Oh, how that woman gets on my nerves! And there’s another thing.’ Maggie now pulled her feet from the fender and placed her glass on the side table before swivelling round and pointing her finger at him. ‘You know as well as I do he doesn’t declare half, and I’ve told you you should probe into it a bit further and let him know that you know. I don’t forget the dirty work he did at the new election of councillors sometime before then. In forty-nine he tried for the Tynemouth Ward when Solomon Mease got it, and Spencer got in for here. Old Tyzack got in too. Remember old Tyzack?’ As she leaned back in the chair again he looked at her, as he often did, in genuine amazement. She had a wonderful mind and a wonderful memory. She could pinpoint people and dates back to those days when, as a girl, she lived on The Lawe in South Shields. At times he asked himself what he would have done without her, and what would he do without her were she to go. She had a pain now and again in her chest that worried him seemingly more than it did her. He had stopped asking himself why he loved her more than anyone in the world; yes, even Belle. But then, that was a different thing, a different feeling. Belle was a sprite, a joy, something as light as air, yet as dark as bog oak; but Maggie…Maggie was a rock. She was a mind that instilled itself into you, and she certainly had instilled her mind into him. It all went back to that night when they had come across the river, he, she and Belle. Yet all she had put into his mind had not given him the power to put words to the feeling he had for her, which wasn’t like the feeling he had for his mother. He felt guilty in knowing that that feeling for his mother was a faint shadow compared to the way he thought of Maggie Hewitt. It could have been the feelings of the son for the mother, yet it wasn’t. It could have been those of a man for his wife. Yes; yes, it could, but it wasn’t. It could have been for a teacher, a wise teacher, a stern, grim one at times, but nevertheless kind and wise teacher. No, no; he couldn’t put words to the feeling he had for the woman sitting in that chair. He only knew he wanted to hug her to him. He had done it twice. The last time had been on New Year’s morning, and he felt he must never do it again because the result of it then had been her going into her room and crying so bitterly that he could hear her through the locked door. This woman with her weather-beaten face and her skinny body which he knew
would harbour everlastingly the girl who had never been given the opportunity to become a real woman, was someone he loved and loved so much that he was daily fearful of losing her.

  He said now, ‘Belle finishes school tomorrow. What are you going to do with her?’

  ‘What d’you think? Put her in a cage on show?’

  ‘You could do; it would be the safest because you’ve got a problem on your hands. I suppose you’ve thought about that.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Musgrave, I’ve thought about it. And so have you, haven’t you?’ She cast a sidelong knowing glance at him, and he shrugged his shoulders before he said, ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Well, would you mind sharing your thoughts with me?’

  He picked up a mass of scattered papers, then tapped the bottoms on the desk to bring them into order, after which he laid them on the leather-bordered blotting pad before going round the desk and seating himself in a chair to the other side of the hearth from her. ‘Finish that hot drink,’ he said.

  ‘Never mind the hot drink, answer my question.’

  ‘Well’—he pursed his lips—‘she’s got to be told sometime, but when, that’s one problem; how, is another problem. And, as you’ve already found out, she has a lively, enquiring mind, and so doubtless she will want to go across the water not only to see the house but also her half-brother, so called. And that, Maggie, is as far as my thoughts go on the subject; except that I can’t see any need for bringing the matter up unless something untoward happens, and my mind doesn’t give me a picture of anything so untoward that would make you tell her that you are in no way related to her, that she is not the daughter of your cousin but that, nevertheless, you love her like you would your own daughter; in fact, the moment you first saw her she became the focal point of your life and everyone else was excluded.’