A Mother's Gift (27 page)

Kate sighed and stood up, walking down the steps that led to the elaborate portico. She stared down the drive frowning.

‘Where the heck’s that taxi?’ she asked the air. There were a few cars parked by the house and she glared at them. ‘You’d think one of the buggers could have given us a lift to the station.’

‘Mam! You swore!’ said Georgie.

In fact, Kate realised, in this last ten minutes she had reverted more and more to the accents and idiom of her childhood. It had all been there underneath her polite way of speaking. Except of course that if she had sworn in front of her gran she would have earned a slap across the face. She smiled as she pictured her gran’s face when she was angry. Oh God, what a mess she had made of things. Or Matthew had made of things. No, it had been her own fault, she had a will of her own, hadn’t she, and she had Georgie, she wouldn’t not have had Georgie, would she? She was worth it all.

A taxi was turning into the drive. ‘Howay now, Georgie,’ Kate said over her shoulder. ‘Let’s away. I can’t wait to get home.’

As the taxi went down the drive, crackling and crunching over the gravel, Georgie looked out of the back window. There was no sign of anyone at the door or the
windows
. It was as if the house wanted nothing to do with them. She grinned and turned back to the front. That was probably right. Well,
she
wasn’t going to be shrugged off so easily. She would make her mark and they would not be able to ignore her, oh no they would not.

It was not until that night in the privacy of her own bedroom that Georgie cried for her father. And her reasons for crying were all mixed up in her mind. There was the deep yearning to see him again if only once. She could ask him why he had done what he did. Spoiling her mother’s life by keeping her on this isolated part of the moor, keeping her, Georgie, ignorant of her true position. It could almost have been a game, had he enjoyed it? It was a wonder it hadn’t all come to light anyway.

She went over the events of the day. There was only Bertram who was related to her, she realised. And he’d acted like the spoiled kid he probably was. Robert and the girl, woman rattier, old maid probably, they had a different surname, Richards. They were her fathers step-children. And their mother, Mary Anne, she was a funny woman. Funny peculiar, that is, the way she had reacted to discovering her husband had another woman he had kept for years and years. It was almost as though meeting Kate was a bit of a relief to her.

No one was really grieving, she thought suddenly. No one in his first family anyway. Just her and her mother. And even her mother was perking up remarkably swiftly. She acted as though a burden had been removed from her rather than her beloved Matthew.

Georgie stood by the window, the tears drying on her
face
. She sniffed and blew her nose on her hankie. She had a slight headache and her eyes prickled. She stared outside at the black dark of the moor. Only in the far distance, above the village hidden from the house in a fold of the moor was there a faint redness that showed there were lights there.

Durham, she thought. Well, it wouldn’t be so bad and she would be closer to her mother. But she had no intention of entering the business when she finally got her degree, of that she was certain. No, she refused absolutely to work in a steel foundry or whatever they called the place. Anyway, wouldn’t it be nationalised, anyway?

Cheered at the thought, Georgie drew the curtains and climbed into bed. In the bedroom next door she could hear small sounds that meant her mother was doing the same. There was the sound of a knock and a door opening, then Dorothy’s voice. She would be bringing her mother hot milk and the comfort of her company for ten minutes as she always did. Thank God for Dorothy, Georgie thought sleepily. No doubt her mother would have gone off her head living in such isolation if it hadn’t been for her house keeper.

‘WE WILL CONTEST
the will,’ said Bertram. ‘He had no right, no right at all.’

‘It would do no good according to Mr Fox,’ said Robert. ‘No, Bertam, I don’t think there is anything to be done.’

It was eight o’clock and the family had gathered in the dining-room for the evening meal. They were waiting for Mary Anne to come down. Bertram, as he had done since Matthew died, sat in his father’s seat at the head of the table. He had looked up defiantly when Robert entered the room as though expecting a challenge but Robert had merely smiled and gone to his usual seat at the side, opposite Maisie.

‘What does he know?’ asked Bertram. ‘I’m the head of the house now and I say we will contest the will. We can get another solicitor. I’m sure there will be others eager to take his place. In any case, Mr Fox is an old fuddy-duddy.’

If he expected an argument he was disappointed.
Robert
merely smiled at him. In truth he couldn’t be bothered with Bertram’s naive utterances.

‘Well, if you want me to leave I can do so,’ he suggested. ‘I have no wish to look after this estate, I have enough to do. My tenants in Whitworth Hall are going soon. Their lease is up and they have said they don’t wish to renew it. I was thinking of moving out of here anyway. Now I have full control of the Richards works I want to live nearer.’

‘I didn’t say I wanted you to go,’ Bertram mumbled, his ears going bright red.

‘Go, who is going?’

The men got to their feet as Mary Anne came in and nodded to Benson. ‘If it’s ready you can serve now, John,’ she said.

‘I was saying that I wouldn’t mind going back to Whitworth Hall, Mother. The tenancy lease is almost expired.’

‘Oh?’ Mary Anne looked a little alarmed. ‘But who would look after things here?’

‘I would of course,’ said Bertram. ‘It’s my house, my land.’

‘I understood that I was to have control until you were twenty-five, Bertram,’ his mother said gently. Oh, how she wished this younger son of hers had as much sense as her older one.

‘Yes, but that’s only a matter of form. I didn’t mean I would chuck you out. I just meant—’

‘Never mind, Bertram, I understand,’ said Mary Anne. ‘In fact I was thinking how nice it would be to go back to
Whitworth
Hall myself. This might be the perfect opportunity.’

‘Mother! You’re not going, are you?’ Suddenly Bertram had reverted to a small boy frightened of losing his mother.

‘No, I’m not going. In any case you have to go back to school. You have your highers to think of. Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up, Bertram.’

‘Oh no, I wasn’t going to bother with that,’ said Bertram. ‘I will be busy won’t I? What with the business and everything. And anyway, I am grown up.’

John came in and served the leek and potato soup followed by rissoles and vegetables from the garden.

‘Is this all there is?’ asked Bertram.

‘Sorry, Bertram, the meat ration doesn’t last the week. We’re lucky to have this,’ said Mary Anne. Rationing was still in force as the country struggled to help out ravaged Europe and at the same time cope with the huge debts from the war.

‘What about me, Robert, will I go with you or stay here?’ Maisie startled them all by speaking. She was usually so quiet.

‘Oh Maisie, it’s entirely your own choice,’ said Robert. ‘But I thought you would want to stay with Mother. If not I would love to have you at Whitworth Hall.’

‘He’s a right pain in the neck, that Bertram,’ John said to Daisy as he brought the empty plates into the kitchen. Daisy was busy doling out plates of semolina and conserved apricots and John began to load his tray with them.

‘Aye, I always said so,’ she replied. ‘By, if one of mine
and
Eddie’s had turned out like him I’d have murdered him. Though they wouldn’t have done, we don’t spoil our kids.’

Daisy and Eddie Lawson were married now and the flat over the stables had been enlarged to accommodate their growing family. She looked harassed as she dished up the sweet, her waist thickened and her ankles swollen. She was the only woman servant the Hamiltons had managed to retain and that was because Eddie didn’t want to move, he was quite happy living over the stable and working around the place when he wasn’t called upon to drive.

Now Eddie sat at the kitchen table wondering how he was going to get out of buying a cottage in the village with the two hundred pounds Matthew had left them. It had been Daisy’s dream ever since they were married and now she was determined that it would come true.

‘A turn up for the books mind, this tart and her daughter showing up, wasn’t it, Eddie? I never guessed for a minute. Mind, I know he was one for the ladies, like.’

‘Oh, I knew about her,’ said Eddie. ‘She’s a pitman’s brat from over Bishop Auckland way.’

‘By, you old sod, you never said a word,’ John said, pausing with the tray of sweets in his hand. Eddie laughed and tapped his finger on the side of his nose though in truth he had been as surprised as anyone by the revelations of the day. He remembered her all right, recognised her and her striking eyes and colouring but he hadn’t known the affair was still on after all these years. The lucky old goat, he thought to himself with a twinge of envy.

‘Aye well, the Hamilton mines are gone now,
nationalised
with the rest,’ said John. ‘The miners are cock a hoop.’

‘The steelworks won’t be long neither and then what will happen to the Hamiltons?’ said Eddie.

‘Eh, folk like them’ll still land on top of the heap, they always do,’ Eddie answered.

‘I hope so, else what’ll happen to us?’ asked Daisy. ‘’Cos you’ll never shift to get another job, I know you.’

Upstairs, the meal finished, Robert excused himself and went off to his study but though there was plenty to do after his stepfather’s sudden death he couldn’t concentrate on work. He had kept his temper and said as little as possible all day for he didn’t want to say anything until he had had time to think about what had happened.

He was filled with a cold fury. What sort of man was it that did what his stepfather had done to his wife? To keep a woman all those years, to have a child with her and bring her up hidden from his family? (Oh, he had known Matthew was fond of visiting the red light district in Middlesbrough but this was something altogether different.) He was furious for the sake of his mother.

Why had Matthew married her, anyway? Just to gain control of the Richards Steelworks, that was why, obviously. And he had had control, all these years; longer even than he would normally have done for when he himself had reached his majority he had been away fighting for his country.

Robert boiled with fury as he remembered all the times his stepfather had slighted his mother, speaking to her as though she were a servant sometimes, especially when
Robert
was small. And Maisie, she was so timid and self-effacing because of Matthew, of course she was. He had belittled her and sneered at her all the time when what she had needed was someone to bolster her confidence. If only her fiance hadn’t been killed in the war she might have come out of it. If only he himself had been at home he could have helped. But there it was, Maisie was Maisie and there was no way of changing her now.

His stepfather had left his tart, for that was what she was, an annuity, well, he could afford it. He had come out well from the nationalisation of the mines. And made a fortune during the war too, all the ironmasters had of course. Even those that were bombed. That small one down the coast, at Skinningrove, it had been one of the first to be damaged, he remembered that. The Jerries had mistaken it for Middlesbrough which was a bit of a joke really.

Robert poured himself a whisky and added a splash of water before settling back in his armchair and sipping appreciatively. Most of the good stuff, the single malts was reserved for export only but Matthew had always managed to get the odd bottle. This was a Glen Morangie and very mellow.

He thought of that chit of a girl standing defensively beside her mother that morning. A girl who looked more like his stepfather than Bertram, there was no question of paternity there. Only her eyes were like her mother’s, a striking dark blue which had darkened to violet when she felt her mother threatened. She had Matthew’s thick black hair, his determined chin. Though somehow she wasn’t
quite
so good-looking as her mother. But evidently she was clever, had won a scholarship to Oxford. If it wasn’t for his mother’s feelings, he would have welcomed her into the business, goodness knows Bertram wasn’t exactly well endowed in the brains department.

Robert poured himself another drink, unusual for him. But then it had been an unusual day with the bombshell that Fox had dropped. He would like to have thought of the girl’s mother as someone out for what she could get and not caring if she broke a marriage up in the process. But he knew his stepfather too well for that. Matthew had always had an eye for the ladies. Thinking of that Robert’s anger rose again. His mother was better off without him but would she realise that? He drained his glass and got to his feet. It was past time for bed, there was plenty to do in the morning. He would just look in on his mother, say goodnight.

Mary Anne was in bed already, the great bed that had been her own since Bertram was born so it did not remind her of Matthew. He had slept in the dressing room next door every night and she had been grateful for it. She lay, propped up on the pillows with a book on her knees but she wasn’t reading. She was thinking of Kate and her daughter, Georgina, and trying to puzzle out what it was that had attracted her to Matthew in the first place. His money? Mary Anne didn’t think so, Kate hadn’t struck her as the mercenary type.